Bleaker Beginnings
by Sword of the Shadow
Summary: Kept up for archival purposes. For the COMPLETELY revamped version, see the forthcoming Black Dawn.
1. Opener

Title: Darkness Descending  
  
Author: Sword of the Shadow  
  
Summary: Lily and James agree to turn to the side of Voldemort on Halloween. Harry is raised to believe in the power of Voldemort for four years, until something unexpected changes that all. Can he do what he was destined to do if he grew up calling Voldemort "uncle"?  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything else in this story that you would recognize, but if you would like to sue me, go right ahead. You can sure go on a big shopping spree with about thirty cents.  
  
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Chapter One  
  
~**~**~  
  
Harry was not like other children his age. He had never really been like them. Oh, to be sure, he was smaller than a full grown adult, just as they were, and he was still attempting to figure out the world around him through trial and error, but there were more differences to be drawn than there were similarities.  
  
Harry had never been innocent, not ever. His mother had told him the story, many, many times. He would sit, staring at her, with his emerald eyes flashing wide in the light of a single candle in whatever house they were holing up in for that week, and just listen to her words, drinking them in. Often, when she approached the scary parts or the ones where she was horrified at her own casual choice of words and even more monstrous actions, she would pull him onto her lap even more firmly than before and wrap two of her strong, comforting arms around him. Harry, despite the fact that his family's past would have been enough to petrify any other toddler, was never scared when his mother was near.  
  
"You see, Harry," she would explain in her soothing voice, "we were fighting on the wrong side during the war. We were blinded by Dumbledore, the Muggle-loving fool, and so we failed to realize that it was the Dark Lord who had the right of it all along. So on Halloween, just a year after you were born, he came to our house. He talked to us, and made us able to see that he was the rightful master of all the wizarding kind, as well as the Muggles."  
  
Her voice broke, cracking as if she loathed to spin the lies that she wove so constantly for her single son. Harry, as young as he was, failed to realize that his mother was only telling him this because, if she ever dared to tell him the truth, she would not be around to whisper any more bedtime stories in his ears the following night.  
  
"And so we joined up with the Dark Lord, your dad and I, and we realized how much better it was to be a Death Eater than it was to be one of the members of the Order. We told them everything we knew, and we can now serve the Dark Lord as we were meant to."  
  
Tears were streaking down her lovely face by this point, a face worn by acts of torture that she would rather not have committed had not resisting meant that the lives of her entire family, including herself, would be stripped away from her. Harry, with a child's simple faith, tried to comfort her by grabbing onto her and hugging her tightly, assuring her that she was on the right path. This only made her sob harder.  
  
Looking at her son, she could not help but wonder if the sacrifice had been worth it. To be certain, James, Lily, and Harry were all together as they were meant to be, but at what cost? They had betrayed everyone, turned traitors, and were now helping the cause that they had once vowed to fight against until the last drop of their life blood fell out of the veins. Worst of all, a blow that turned from mental to emotional to physical every time her shocked mind brought the subject to the surface of her thoughts to torture her with, was Harry.  
  
Harry was well fed, taken care of with the best things, and was never lacked anything. It was not his physical upbringing that worried her; it was the mental conditioning that he was recieving, the brainwashing that she herself was forced to become a part of. Ever since the young couple had been inducted into the shadowy ranks of the Death Eaters, Harry had been told of the majesty and might of the Dark Lord, of the filthiness and unworthiness of Muggles, squibs, and Muggle-borns.  
  
He had watched, with his child's uncriticizing eyes, as hundreds were murdered by the Unforgivables and as others were slowly tortured in an effort to withdraw information that the victims may or may not have been the holders of. Worst of all were the times when the toddler had seen Muggles tortured for the sheer sport of the matter, and had even cheered when some masked Death Eater had explained to the boy what was happening.  
  
It made Lily Evans Potter just plain sick.  
  
Harry could not remain unchanged by his upbringing; she doubted that even the most pure of soul could. He laughed when Voldemort raised his wand and uttered the words Avada Kedavra, smiled whenever he was present as an Auror was brought forth to be interrogated and, eventually, broken.  
  
If Lily had not known better, she would have thought that the boy belonged to Voldemort, curse him, than her.  
  
If she had believed the Dark wizard capable of the feeling, she would have told anyone who would listen quite readily that Voldemort loved her son. Many times he would pull Harry up to sit next to him where he watched over the meetings of his Death Eaters with his cold, snake-like gaze. He would whisper things in Harry's ear, which would promptly cause Lily to pale, aware of the fact that he was corrupting her son as surely as he was evil and bent on the destruction of the vast majority of the world.  
  
To her disgust, Harry would refer to the malicious Voldemort as uncle, a term which the cruel, heartless man endured as long as he was able to catch Lily's eyes and. though he spoke no words on the matter, made her clearly understand that her child, the fruit of her womb, was completely and irrevocably his. Then he would turn again to the child on his lap with a smile that was more of a sneer, adding more and more layers of brainwashing to the ones that were already wrapped thickly about his tender mind.  
  
The Death Eaters were just as bad, if not worse, their wrongs multiplied by the hundreds of them. It was one of them-she personally suspected Lucius Malfoy- who had first wrapped Harry's fingers around a slender wand and taught him how to cast his first spell. Not Lily. Lily had missed out on the small but heady joys of that and many other parts of Harry growing up. A Death Eater taught Harry to read, another instructed him on how to play wizard's chess. Lily had a violent outburst when she first stumbled upon her son, with his booted feet kicking up in the air and his dark black robes and mask, a minature version of the Death Eater uniform, spread out about him, contemplating his next move with a dark-haired witch, her masked eyes gazing at Harry almost lovingly.  
  
James was almost as bad as Harry, though in a much different sort of way. He seemed to think that the only way he could protect his wife would be to separate himself from her whenever they were in the presence of the master that they would rather have not had anything to do with so that Voldemort would think that he cared for her little. That way, she would no longer be a pawn to be used against him, would cease to be a vulnerability that Voldemort could rip open wide. They grew more and more distant out of what James saw as a necesity and what Lily saw as another unnesecary layer of protection from the Dark Lord.  
  
Right now, though, all of that was far away. The small family of three was comfortably settled in a small house in the middle of a Muggle village. Voldemort professed that it was for their defense, but Lily knew that it was just a test to see how well he could test the family that had been with him for four years already.  
  
Harry, with his uncontrollable black hair and round glasses, was standing next to his father, both of them with wands pulled out and held at the ready. They were a matched set, the two of them, save for their size and the color of their eyes. Where Harry's were the same brillaint emerald green of Lily's, James' were a warm hazel.  
  
When he was here, alone with them, Lily could almost forget that Harry was being reared to the idea that the Dark Lord had the divine right (or some thing like it at the very least, she doubted that Voldemort had ever had any kind of religion) to rule the world and completely eradicate any and all Muggles. Here, Harry was brought down from where he played tag with a group of Death Eaters and he no longer seemed the kind of little boy who would laugh at the administration of an Unforgivable upon the most innocent of specimens. Sometimes Lily wondered if Harry were not the one fooling them all, convincing his parents that he was truly happy as a young Death Eater and also tricking Voldemort into thinking that Harry was bound to germinate into his right-hand man when he reached an appropriate age.  
  
Harry already knew much more magic than he should have at five, but that was another plan of his parents. If they could make Harry invaluable to the Dark Lord, then he would be allowed to live. That was all that really mattered to the two stunned parents: Harry's survival.  
  
At the moment, James was showing Harry an advanced type of shadow charm that would allow him to be invisible so long as he skulked in dark places. Harry had picked up on it immediately, and was flitting about the room, completely unseen by either of his parents. Laughing, he collapsed in a heap on the richly carpeted floor, rolling around in his merriment.  
  
"Careful, Harry!" she warned as he approached too closely to the fireplace for her comfort.  
  
Harry glanced up at her and quickly stopped his boisterous activities, pushing himself into a standing position with the help of his small arms. His eyes fixed on something behind her, staring intently at that single spot. Just as Lily turned around to see what it was that had so engrossed her son, there was an audible pop and two men were standing in the middle of the warm room.  
  
"Sirius! Remus!" James breathed, hazel eyes wide at the sight of his two best friends. "You can't be here; you have to go now!"  
  
"Worried about us, Prongs?" Sirius asked with an easy smirk, leaning casually against the couch while nodding briefly to a shocked Lily. "We're not the one who's been a Death Eater for the past four years."  
  
"An unwilling one only," Lily hastened to reassure the pair.  
  
"Of course. The mere idea that you two would have turned to the dark side is preposterous!" Remus admitted. His brown hair, liberally peppered with gray, was brushed impatiently out of his eyes as he took a step forward. "Which is why we're here."  
  
"To do what?" James asked, just as Harry broke in.  
  
"Who're they, mum?" he asked, childish voice filled with confusion and more than a little fright. Lily motioned for Harry to join her on the couch, which he did promptly, vaulting onto the plump cushions and burrowing down with a thump. He peered at Sirius and Remus with his eyes that had seen too much, then cocked his head in a puzzled manner. "Do I know them?"  
  
"There's no time for that now. Sirius, what do you think you're doing? Voldemort will not refrain from killing you when he finds out that you're here."  
  
"That's why he won't find out. We apparated here, and we can apparate back out. Voldemort won't have to know until we are far away from here." Sirius still wore his grin, and now it widened as he outlined precisely how they were about to beat the evil wizard.  
  
"He has spies here, Sirius! He'll already know that you came to us; the best thing that you can do now is to go!" Harry had never heard his mother use that forceful a tone with anyone, and it frightened him. He dug deeper down into the cushions of the couch, eyes widening until they were bright emerald orbs that took over much of his face.  
  
"Very astute of you, Lily," a cold new voice sneered condescendingly. "But they won't be able to flee now."  
  
~**~**~  
  
All right, so that's just the beginning. Feel free to review, flame, or whatever, so long as it involves pressing the little button down there and typing in comments. 


	2. Death

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Chapter Two  
  
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"Voldemort," the four adult wizards breathed together, turning around to face the largest menace to society that the world had known in centuries. At his side stood two Death Eaters, properly robed and masked, who already had their wands drawn and held at the ready.  
  
"It's nice to hear someone finally using my name," he commented coolly. "I went to all that trouble to find one intimidating enough, and now no one ever dares to utter it. Pity, really. I suppose I did my job too well." His cold smile was not returned by any of the full wizards.  
  
"Uncle!" Harry screamed, leaping up to bow in front of the Dark wizard as he had been trained. Voldemort barely acknowledged the kneeling boy with a nod before returning his meticulous attention back to the older Potters.  
  
"I knew that this was coming, that you would not be fully dedicated to me. After all I have done for you: providing everything for you and your son, granting you with power, and allowing you the right to live, especially since you had been fighting against me for years. "  
  
"All you ever did was enslave us," Lily grated out, her knuckles turning white from the firm grip that she kept on her polished wand. "I'm not grateful for that!"  
  
"And you didn't provide for Harry; you corrupted him!" James hissed.  
  
Both of them knew that this was their time to make a stand. They had run away from the issue before, uniting powers with evil in order to save their own lives. Sirius and Remus would surely never have done that. Now, though, the point was moot as Voldemort would most likely kill them out of either sheer spite or in order to make an example of the couple to prove to the other Death Eaters the consequences of rebelling against him.  
  
"You should never have contacted your old friends," the cruel wizard admonished sharply. Beside him, the two Death Eaters stirred as if they were dogs scenting blood Voldemort motioned them to stillness before anyone else dared to speak up.  
  
"They didn't contact us, but we should have come much sooner!" Sirius shot off, pale cheeks burning with a flush of anger.  
  
Remus chimed in with his considerable knowledge. "You're just picking on others because you are insecure about yourself. Putting yourself above those you decide are inferior is just a ploy to convince yourself of your own importance."  
  
Voldemort laughed, a high, shrilly sound that scratched across the air as an almost tangible presence. He did not stop for several long minutes in which everyone shifted their positions slightly, attempting to position themselves in the perfect dueling form. Finally, the chortles cut off aprubtly, and Voldemort once again surveyed the defying group through his narrow, red slits of eyes.  
  
"I do what I do in order to cleanse the world from those not powerful enough! Only those strong in magic deserve to have strength, and I will guarantee that it is so. But I do not have to explain myself to you, fool."  
  
"Then why did you just do so?" Sirius muttered dryly, shaking his head while rolling his eyes.  
  
Voldemort ignored him. "I grow tired of bandying words with this group of incompetents," he declared, moving so that his black robes billowed out behind him, adding to the drama of the moment. He certainly was a fearsome sight, inky cloth swirling about him, contrasting so sharply with his chalk white face. His calculating eyes seemed out of place on his face, but not as much as they would have done so on a normal man. There was some inhuman quality that his features had gained over the years, something that made him slightly surreal and more than a little intimidating.  
  
"You have reached the ultimatum!" he announced, hands stretched out beside him. "Either you join me or," a definitive note of utmost pleasure entered his voice, "you will die!"  
  
The choice was made in an instant, though it was not a callous one. The pros and cons were weighed again, and the outcome was still the same. Voldemort smirked when they did not cease their offensive stances and remained rooted to their spots on the carpeted floors.  
  
"Very well then." He raised his wand until it was level with his shoulder, drawing out the moment to exact as much perverse joy from it as possible. "Crucio!"  
  
Lily collapsed into a shivering heap on the floor, pain wracking her slim body and sending her spine convulsing into positions that were previously thought impossible. James knelt down at his wife's side, forgetting the danger that the dark wizards presented, abandoning all in the terror of seeing his wife tortured.  
  
Voldemort chuckled again, eyes wide with the pleasure of his spot of fun, breathing deeply through his slits of nostrils. A maniac light entered his face, one which all too many- wizards, witches, and Muggles alike- had seen immediately before their deaths.  
  
Sirius, Remus, and the two anonymous Death Eaters were not immobile while the other three were trapped in the torture. All four were busy flinging curses and hexes at each other as quickly as they could bring the incantations to their minds. All were forced to ignore the shrieks coming from the lovely young woman lying spread-eagled on the ground, the Death Eaters so that they did not become too involved in the pleasure of the moment and the two friends so that they could remove the threat before they acted rashly, destroying any chances of rescuing the woman.  
  
Harry, in the meanwhile, had scuttled backwards until he was pressed firmly against one of the warm vermilion walls of the room. What was happening? Why were his mum and dad trading curses with the man who had helped to see to his needs for the past four years? Who were those two men, and why were they attacking his Death Eater friends?  
  
Needless to say (though it shall be said anyway) Harry was befuddled. He had no idea what was occurring around him, so he simply remained huddled in his corner, unsure of who he should be helping.  
  
"Cease!" Voldemort cried out, following his own command by dropping the Cruciatus curse off of Lily. The Death Eaters lowered their own wands, one of them stopping mid-jinx in his hurry to obey his master. Sirius and Remus were more hesitant, flinging one last curse each before desisting, but both kept their wands held in the dueling position.  
  
Each of the combatants had bruises and scrapes, and Sirius's dark hair was singed from a fireball that had clipped his ear. Lily was shivering on the floor, sobbing with the pain. James held her gently, whispering reassurances in her ear. He seemed to have regained enough of his mind to pull his wand out of his pocket, and he held it nervously between his thumb and forefinger.  
  
"This," Voldemort informed them coolly, "is your last chance. You will join me, or you will die!"  
  
Sirius, still a bit of a joker even in the lethal atmosphere, murmured softly, "I thought that was what you said last time." Remus glanced at him sideways, clearly wondering how his friend could make an attempt at levity in the humorless situation.  
  
It was James who gave the real answer, standing up proudly with his feet shoulder-width apart. "We won't be parley to your cruel whims any longer!" he declared. "Kill us!" The words were very brave, even if they would surely cost him his life. James found that he did not want to continue to live if it meant he would be the subject of such a heartless, hypocritical master.  
  
"I was almost hoping you would say that," Voldemort rejoined with evident glee. "Avada Kedavra!"  
  
A blinding flash of green light, a single last gasp of breath, and James toppled over, dead.  
  
"No!" Lily shrieked, flinging herself on top of her deceased husband's already cooling corpse. "NO!"  
  
James. He was a friend, a spouse, a constant companion. She had spent almost every moment for him for over half of a decade, and they had known each other for years before that. He was a steady presence in her life and now he was... gone.  
  
Rage clouded her brain, streaking her vision with red. Red for the blood that was no longer flowing through the veins of her love. Red for his house, for Gryffindor. Red for his valor, his loyalty, his stalwart courage.  
  
Fury was all that she had room for now. Fury and the scant possibility of saving Harry's life. Harry was all that was left to her now, the last of James' legacy, and she was determined to make that count for something.  
  
"You bastard," she hissed at Voldemort. "You'll pay for this!" Her green eyes narrowed with her anger, and her hand clenched her wand so tightly that there was a danger of cutting of the circulation to her slender fingers.  
  
"I rather think not. After I dispose of you, I will have full control of your son." He gesticulated to where Harry was curled up in his corner, eyes squinched tightly together in his confusion.  
  
"No! You won't have Harry! Whatever you do, leave Harry alone!" she pleaded hopelessly. Desperation filled her voice, making her voice crack and falter on the words. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen to the floor had she not locked her legs together firmly.  
  
"Silly girl, stand aside. You're not important; he is. Stand aside, or you will die!" he growled in response, nearly shoving her aside in order to reach the boy.  
  
"Not Harry!" she yelled, raising her wand up, lips forming into a wide "o" as she started to utter a single spell that would stop Voldemort.  
  
She never finished.  
  
"Avada Kedavra!" Another flash of green light, illuminating the formerly cozy chamber with sickening light. Harry's eyes snapped open of their own accord, just in time to see his mother sink down to the bright, cheery rugs, her eyes rolling up into her head and her hair spread about her like a crown of flames.  
  
"Mum!" Harry shrieked, flinging himself onto the corpse of his mother, shaking her by her shoulders. "Mum, mum, wake up!"  
  
"She won't wake up, boy," Voldemort explained. "She's dead."  
  
"No!" he screamed, still prodding his mother in an attempt to see her smile again. "She can't be dead!"  
  
"She can and is. Come along, boy. I have other matters to attend to." Voldemort held out a sickly white hand, one that looked as if maggots should be feeding on it ravenously.  
  
"You killed my mum!" Harry whipping his wand out of his robes as he did so.  
  
"And you're mummy's friends killed my Death Eaters. Fair is fair. Come along!" he added with impatience, gesturing again for Harry to join him. Harry glanced around warily, noticing the crumpled forms of the two black- robed figures and the two adult wizards who had their wands trained on Voldemort.  
  
"I don't care! You killed my mum and dad; I'll kill you!"  
  
"I grow tired of your rebellion, boy," Voldemort warned. "Come with me, or suffer the same fate that your parents have already met, and that their friends will." his voice was dripping with impatience and annoyance, as well as a small portion of disdain.  
  
"No!"  
  
"Very well. You could have been great, boy." He flicked the wrist that grasped his wand with a well-practiced motion, and mouthed the dreaded words. "Avada Kedavra!"  
  
There was another blinding explosion of emerald illumination, this one accompanied by a high-pitched scream, although not one of a child. Remus and Sirius were thrown to the ground roughly from the resulting pitching of the house in the aftershock. Harry cried out in pain, clasping his hands to his forehead where a lightning-shaped gash had opened up. For all four of the living inhabitants of the house, everything went black.  
  
~**~**~ 


	3. Waking

~**~**~  
  
Chapter Three  
  
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Harry blinked groggily, reaching up with his small hands to wipe layers of grime and soot away from his eyes. Where was he? He sat up gingerly, causing small piles of rubble to cascade down around him. The building that had previously been the house was in shambles around him. None of the debris was recognizable as whatever polished wood furniture or solid walls it had been previously..  
  
Except... a pale hand stuck out of the heaps of charred wood. Harry clambered over to it, slipping and falling on the trash around him. Two bands of gold circled the ring finger, one of them with a small diamond set into it carefully.  
  
"Mum!" he sobbed, pulling her body out of the remnants of the house. her eyes were closed, giving her an odd expression of almost peace. "Mum!"  
  
He did not know how long he sat there, head cradled in his fragile hands, sobbing until his green eyes were red-rimmed and his cheeks puffy from his tears. He could not comprehend what had happened. His parents were well one moment, laughing and joking with him, and the next morning they were cold and lifeless.  
  
As far as he could figure, it was the fault of the two men who had shown up at their house that night. If they had not appeared out of no where, Voldemort would have had no reason to come and confront his parents. His parents' deaths could be laid at the feet of the two strange men who had come to his house the night before.  
  
He spotted a stray foot poking out of the garbage. Maybe it was his father. Possibly, despite everything, he might have survived. Harry stumbled over to it, scraping his hand on a raw edge of wood. Blood welled up from the cut, and a blazing fire roared through his hand. Cradling the limb gently, he tugged with his uninjured hand on the foot.  
  
Moan.  
  
Harry pulled harder, bracing his feet against a particularly large scrap of debris and leaning backwards, placing all of his weight in that direction. Whoever it was, they were alive, and that meant that he had to free them from the junk heaps.  
  
He toppled over as the body jerked out from under the remains of what looked like it had once been a darkly-veneered desk. Squinting from the clouds of dust that his sudden motion sent flying, he nudged his glasses up his nose and stood up to see his father, to run into the arms that were undoubtedly be thrown open wide in expectation of a warm hug.  
  
Harry stopped abruptly. That man was not his father. The dark hair was the same, but his man's locks were longer and less unruly, though they were still rumpled from his night spent under the rubble. His eyes were the wrong color, a shining blue in the stead of the bright hazel that his father's were.  
  
"Harry?" the man questioned, rubbing his eyes as if he thought he was seeing a wraith. "You're alive." He did not sound as if he believed it.  
  
For his part, Harry just stared at the man sullenly, lips curved downwards in a sulking frown and brow furrowed. "You're not my dad."  
  
"No, I'm not. I'm your godfather." The man stretched slowly, rubbing his eyes to free them of the grime that was nearly encrusted on them. "Have you seen Remus? After we find him, if he's still alive, I can take you somewhere safe."  
  
"No."  
  
"What do you mean? I'm going to take care of you; I'm your godfather!" He seemed utterly appalled that Harry would try to deny him his right. Sirius noticed the hurt look on the boy's face, one that was mingled with horror and denial. "Listen, Harry, I'm really sorry about your parents. They were great friends of mine, but we don't have time to grieve now. We have to get out of her before any more Death Eaters show up."  
  
"If you were friends with mum and dad, then how come I've never seen you before?" Harry asked, crossing his arms and glaring at the older man.  
  
"Well..." Sirius rubbed his hands through his hair awkwardly. "It was kind of hard to see you when you were always around Voldemort."  
  
"Why?" Sirius sighed at the query, not realizing that he would face the same single word for the rest of Harry's adolescence if he raised the boy.  
  
"Because Voldemort would have killed me on sight."  
  
"You mean you fought against him?" Harry's lip trembled as he fought back tears. "Then you weren't friends with mum and dad. They didn't fight against Voldemort."  
  
"Look, Harry, Voldemort made them join him. They didn't have a choice. But they fought against him at the end, and that's all that matters."  
  
Harry opened his mouth to make a sharp retort, but was cut off by a groan. Sirius turned away from the young boy and immediately started searching for the source that was emitting the sound, flinging charred scraps behind him in his fervor. One of them soared right into Harry's face, cutting a long scrape on his cheek in addition to his numerous other injuries.  
  
"Remus? Where are you?" Sirius was frantic, darting from one lump to the other.  
  
"Over 'ere," a weak voice called back, and a bruised and battered arm rose to the surface slowly. Sirius rushed over, shoveling the remains of the small house with his bare hands in an effort to reach his friend. Slowly, a worn face emerged, followed by a thin body in torn gray robes.  
  
Sirius helped the other man to his feet, leading him over to where Harry was still standing, bitterness evident in his countenance.  
  
"All right, Harry, we need to go now," Sirius said, putting a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder. "We can sort everything out after we've all eaten and rested up a bit."  
  
"I don't want to go with you! I don't even know you!" Harry protested, squirming free from his godfather's grip.  
  
"Harry," Sirius sighed exasperatedly, "I used to come over to your house every other day. I'm your godfather, and therefore your legal guardian. I'm going to take you back to my house, along with Remus here, and then we can do whatever you want."  
  
"You killed my parents!" Harry roared, eyes flashing with distrust and a deep loathing. "If you hadn't come, mum and dad would still be alive!"  
  
His revelation did not have the affect that he had hoped for, but if he had wanted to wound Sirius deeply like a knife twisting in his gut, he could not have picked better words to do so.  
  
"I did," he admitted, voice suddenly thick with emotion. "If I hadn't told James to switch to Peter as their secret keeper, then Voldemort never would have been able to find them. It is all my fault Harry, though I did not mean to kill them. I'd give anything to go back and change the past."  
  
"But you can't," Harry reminded him, chewing his lip sadly.  
  
"I know, but I can give you a future."  
  
Harry cocked his head to one side, considering this. He might have been only five, but he was not stupid, at least not when he took the time to follow things through to the consequences. If he continued to resist, Sirius could take him forcefully anyway, or he could simply abandon Harry. His choices of surviving with no idea where he was and no money were very slim if he was left alone. He could not let that happen; he would have to follow Sirius.  
  
"Okay," he acquiesced reluctantly.  
  
A huge grin broke out on Sirius' face, one which was mirrored on Lupin's. Sirius settled his hand on Harry's thin shoulder, and Harry did not flinch away from his touch this time. Together, the small group apparated away from the cold ramshackle remnants of the house.  
  
~**~**~  
  
Sirius heaved a huge sigh, settling down into a heavily cushioned armchair with little grace. Remus had whipped up a simple stew consisting of potatoes, meat, and a few bits of vegetables, which all three had eaten heartily. Harry had promptly fallen asleep as soon as the last smudges of his stew were wiped from his bowl, eyes closed and a peaceful expression on his face that Sirius had not seen in the few short hours in which he had been reacquainted with the boy.  
  
After tucking him into a bed covered in crisp white sheets upstairs, Remus and Sirius had stumbled into the chairs in front of a roaring fire where they had sat in silence for some minutes.  
  
"I can't believe they're dead," Sirius choked out, unable to bear the oppressive stillness of the house any longer.  
  
"James and Lily..." Remus croaked.  
  
"James and Lily...." Sirius echoed.  
  
Each became lost in memories of their deceased friends. James chuckled as the potions master spluttered after one of their particularly inventive pranks. Lily the prefect berated them after they had hexed Snape, hands placed on her hips in a way that made her only that much more lovely, even if she did not seem to realize that James paid more attention to her than he did to her harsh words. They saw James lifted high onto the shoulders of the Gryffindor House, all of them cheering and applauding wildly as he held the Quidditch cup aloft, grinning broadly. They witnessed their graduation again, and the full moon immediately following in which they had all transformed into their animagi forms to keep the werewolf in their number in check. The relived the wedding, a joyous affair in the midst of the quickly descending darkness. Lily smiled softly in their minds, holding out Harry to display him to the Marauders after her long and difficult labor, boasting that she cradled in her arms the greatest baby in the entire world.  
  
The memories took a swift downturn from there. Sirius grimaced as he saw James' haggard face arguing with Sirius as he explained his plan to bequeath the grave responsibility of secret keeper on Peter. Remus nearly cried out as he noticed the pained look on Lily's face as she argued with Voldemort, bargaining for the life of her son.  
  
When they had first regained consciousness, they had known that they would have to be strong for Harry. Harry did not need to be taken in hand by two sobbing wizards who had no idea as to what their next move should be. Harry had needed them to present a plan of action and to follow through with it. Harry had to be fed and then shown a place to rest so he could begin to mend from the tribulations he had suffered for his entire life.  
  
Now, though, Harry was snug in his cot and Sirius and Remus needed to grieve. They did so for hours, heads buried in their hands and tears streaming out of their eyes as they weeped and weeped.  
  
They had only two comforts in their long period of mourning. First, the constant presence of the other, the knowledge that they did not sob alone. Even though they exchanged no words after the initial breakdown, each was constantly aware of the other, and they received much from that link.  
  
Second was Harry. Even though James and Lily might be lying in their makeshift grave, Harry was still with them. They still had a living, breathing reminder of their two comrades, one which they could continue to be with for as long as he required adults in his life.  
  
Even if Harry was not exactly welcoming them- in fact he wanted nothing to do with them- they were living solely for him now.  
  
~**~**~ 


	4. Home?

A/N: Hey, everybody (or at least all four of you). I've been busy lately. Sorry about the long wait. For your trouble, here's two new chapters.  
  
And, yeah, Hazzagriff, thanks for reviewing. I had forgotten about this fic until I got the review alert. And, by the way, I did read your profile and I HATE flamingoes. Almost as much as I hate turkeys. They're EVIL.  
  
Chapter Four  
  
~**~**~  
  
Harry scowled at his reflection in the mirror, angrily rubbing at the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. His jet black hair was rumpled no matter what he tried to do with it; he did not even bother to comb it anymore, as it made no difference. His emerald green eyes were covered by his round glasses, appearing far bitterer than the eyes of a five year old should have. This realization only caused him to scowl harder.  
  
He stormed out of the bathroom and stomped down the wooden staircase, making as much noise as he could to awake his godfather. Sirius was rarely up before noon, as he had learned since he moved in a week ago. Harry wanted him to wake up, even if it was only because this would annoy his godfather. On the other hand, if Sirius woke up, then Harry would be forced to spend time in his company. His steps instantly ceased to rock the house and instead became the quiet scampering that was more natural in a child of his slight form.  
  
He plopped down in one of the rickety wooden chairs of the kitchen, frowning deeply at the table. Remus was already preparing breakfast, flicking his wand to fry the bacon and giving it a good swish to send the loaf of bread scurrying to the toaster.  
  
"Good morning, Harry," he greeted cordially. The grimace did not lift from the young boys face, though he did mutter a mumbled response. Remus finished with breakfast and set the meal out on two plates, pouring two glasses to the brim with orange juice as he did so. He set one plate in front of Harry and kept the other for himself, settling down across from the boy.  
  
"What do you want to do today, Harry?" he inquired kindly, lifting a strip of bacon to his mouth. Harry picked at his own food, tearing his toast into small pieces as he thought up an appropriate answer.  
  
For the past week he had done nothing but mope around the house, avoiding his two caretakers as much as humanly possible. He even used the last thing his father had taught him to make himself unseen in the shadowy corners of the cottage. Except for meals, with their strained conversation, he had seen little of either of the men.  
  
He was growing extremely tired of that now. His parents might have not been dead for long, but he was only a little boy. As much as he missed them, he was intelligent enough to realize that he could not waste the rest of his life pining away as a result of the lack of their presence.  
  
So he had to do something, but he had no idea what. Before, he had always had his Death Eater friends to strike up an impromptu game of hide and seek with. Despite their identical uniforms, he was always able to pick out the ones who would spend time playing with him when his parents were kept too busy by Voldemort to entertain him.  
  
Harry had quickly lost his enamored view of Voldemort. The man (Harry silently apologized to the rest of the human race for counting Voldemort among their number, for he knew no other category that the dark lord would fit into) had slain both of his parents, had even reveled in their deaths. His positive feelings were buried deep under the roiling sea of his fury at his mum and dad's murder. Despite the fact that Voldemort had cared for him in an almost off-hand sort of way, his parents' deaths gravely overshadowed that. Even if they had sometimes been too busy or too distracted by their own sudden reversal of roles in the war, they had truly loved him. Seeing Voldemort kill them both nearly killed off what admiration he had previously possessed of the dark lord. He hoped that they would never resurface.  
  
Remus coughed lightly, and Harry started at the sound. Harry realized that the man had been waiting a long time for his response.  
  
"Umm... what did you do when you were a kid?"  
  
Remus looked thoughtful, tilting his head to one side as he considered it. "I read a lot. I didn't have many- any- friends until I went to Hogwarts."  
  
"Oh." Reading did not really appeal to him. He supposed that he could manage it, if the book was interesting enough. He was probably better off hiding in his room again. Another thought occurred to him, and he phrased it with all the innate tact of a five-year old. "Why's Sirius sleep so much?"  
  
"Well, Harry," Remus confided with a conspiratorial wink, "Sirius is antediluvian."  
  
"What?" Harry asked, visibly baffled. Remus mentally smacked himself on the forehead; he should have known better than to use advanced words around a child. Of course, most of his adult friends probably did not understand his selection of words either, but that was beside the point. What mattered was that he needed to remember to restrain his vocabulary.  
  
"It means," he tried again with the same roguish wink that he had perfected as a Marauder, "that Sirius is old, ancient."  
  
"What?!" Sirius blanched, thundering into the kitchen. "Bloody hell, Moony, what lies are you telling my godson? I am not old; we're the same age!" Remus raised an eyebrow at Sirius' choice of explicative; apparently, Sirius also needed to put a dampener on his vocabulary, though in a much different sense than Remus.  
  
"Yes, but you are a few months older. Besides, to Harry, we're probably both senile old fools."  
  
Harry giggled, the first expression of merriment that he had seen from the boy. Remus grinned at Sirius, whose deep frown only made the child laugh harder. His feet swung eagerly from where they dangled far above the ground. After several minutes his chuckles faded away, but his smile did not disappear.  
  
"You're funny, Moony." The sentence was simple, but to Remus it represented a major step in their relationship. Both he and Sirius had told Harry their nicknames from school, but he had never used them before. That he was willing to use such a familiar term was a definite sign of a breach in the wall of distrust that stretched endlessly between them.  
  
"And I'm not?" Sirius wanted to know, planting his hands firmly on his hips.  
  
"No," Harry answered bitterly, his mirth immediately dispersing.  
  
Sirius looked hurt, and Remus immediately felt remorse for his friend. It must be painful for James' son to dislike-loathe- him so completely and irrationally. Sudden inspiration hit him like the real version of the stylized lightning bolt on Harry's forehead.  
  
"Harry, how about you go flying with Sirius? You could play two-man Quidditch."  
  
Harry looked about to disagree, his face settling into a stubborn cast, but at the pleading look Remus gave him, he immediately changed his mind. "Okay."  
  
Sirius' face immediately lost its haunted look, eyes lighting up with something akin to eternal ecstasy, only much stronger. A huge grin played across his features as he raced to collect two brooms. "Let's go!"  
  
Harry followed him out into the yard, and the two soared off into the cerulean skies, a picture that appeared as if it was taken straight out of some sappy novel.  
  
Except that the scene did not reach anywhere near utopia, not if you examined the emotions raging beneath the thin veneer of the picture. Harry was rather glum about the whole deal; to be expected after the death of his parents. For some inexplicable reason, Harry seemed to have attached himself to Remus rather than Sirius.  
  
Remus may have been able to recite thousands of spells from the private repertoire of his memory, he might have easily passed all of his classes during his time at Hogwarts, and he might have been able to understand any magical theory that had ever thrown itself in his way.  
  
He was, despite his cleverness, unable to comprehend why a five-year old child would attach himself to him.  
  
Sirius was so much more likeable to a kid; it should have been him that Harry was trading shy smiles with over his breakfast that morning. Harry had only recently begun to draw out of his shell (he was progressing much faster than Remus had expected, being dumped in the sudden care of two complete strangers) and he should have bonded with Sirius. Sirius was the joker, the most immature adult that he had ever had the misfortune of being associated with.  
  
Then again, from what little he had seen of the boy, Harry was shy, obsessively so. The only time he seemed willing to speak was when he was arguing, and even then it was only what information he deigned necessary to force his point across. Remus was similar to the boy in that respect; it probably had something to do with his permanent status as a werewolf. Before he had been catapulted in the huge castle that housed Hogwarts, he had never made a single friend. As a result, he had turned to books and studies in a sort of substitution, learning all that he could. Although Harry did not seem to be the obsessive academic that Remus was, he certainly had the timid part securely tied down. Harry would come to love Sirius in time. The only thing was that Sirius probably would not understand this.  
  
Sirius had never been one to wait patiently for anything. The matter of James' son was one in which he had already shown signs of being particularly intolerant of any reluctance to form a bond on Harry's part. Just the night before he had stalked around the house for hours to try and locate Harry after the child had flitted away after gulping down his food in stoic silence.  
  
Unfortunately for Sirius, the mind of a child is a fickle thing indeed, and he would just have to wait until Harry came to trust him.  
  
~**~**~ 


	5. Dumbledore

A/N: Wow. I got REVIEWS!!!! And they were GOOD reviews. Thanks a lot! Anyway, I would list all those who reviewed, but I don't have internet access on the computer I'm typing on, so I'm sorry. Anyway, here's the next chapter!  
  
~**~**~  
  
Chapter Five  
  
~**~**~  
  
The scene might have seemed as if it was from a pastoral family in the midst of normal activities until the oddities were noticed and remarked upon. None of the three people occupying the room looked anything alike at all, and they were certainly not resting peacefully, enjoying the company of those around them.  
  
Remus was sitting straight-backed in an equally unyielding chair, eyes zooming as he pored over pages of arcane spells. He alone of the occupants seemed unaware of the tension between the other two and was content to immerse himself in his study and let things work out as they would.  
  
Sirius was likewise seated in a chair, but he was sprawled out with legs flung haphazardly over the overstuffed arms rather than poised primly on the edge. His wand was kept busy flicking and twisting as he recited various incantations under his breath, changing the color of Remus' hair to all sorts of unusual things: green, acidic yellow, lavender, and electric blue. Every so often his shadowed eyes would glance up at the remaining figure in hope of some sort of recognition or at least acknowledgement. There was none to be found.  
  
Tiny Harry Potter was curled into the corner of the room, seeped in shadows. He did not focus on any particular task, instead staring blankly into space with unseeing, never blinking eyes. His face was kept carefully clean of all emotion, hardly an effort after so many years among the Death Eaters. He seemed to be meditating upon something, a rather unusual task for a five year old.  
  
It was into this unusual scene that Albus Dumbledore suddenly appeared, startling all but Harry. The young boy barely glanced at him before retreating further into the darkness in the corner.  
  
A twinkle was shimmering in his blue eyes, the one part of him that seemed eternally young when compared to the rest of his aged body. "And what are two young men such as yourselves doing cooped up in a dreary house like this when all the world is celebrating the downfall of Voldemort. And more importantly, why is Remus' hair a rather shocking shade of pink?" His mouth twisted upwards in a lasting grin which deepened as Remus absent- mindedly snatched a glowing lock of hair from where it was tucked behind his ears. The werewolf stared at it with an open mouth for several minutes, unable to process the information.  
  
"Sirius, what have you done?" he raged, standing up quickly and drawing his wand with the practiced air that all involved in the war had adopted out of necessity.  
  
"I was. err. trying to amuse Harry?" Sirius attempted feebly, a not at all remorseful, though all too common, look on his face.  
  
"It's not funny," Harry chimed in from the corner, his frigid voice portraying just exactly what he thought of Sirius' pranks.  
  
"Is that. Harry Potter?" Dumbledore questioned, pushing his small spectacles up on his nose for a clearer view. "Dear, I haven't seen you since you were a child."  
  
Harry, intrigued by this new appearance and relieved at a different personality than that of Sirius and Remus, slunk slowly into the light of the mounted sconces. He cocked his head to one side and gave the stranger an appraising look before standing calmly as if he was ordered to attention by the Dark Lord.  
  
"Who are you?" he asked quite coolly, his emerald eyes weighing the elderly man and assessing all that he saw with such a degree of calculation that the manner gave him a foreign, devilish look to his already hardened face.  
  
"Albus Dumbledore," the man responded jovially with a flourished bow, sweeping his pointed electric blue hat spangled with phoenixes off his head and tossing his cloak behind him in a dramatic fashion. He peered up through his glasses with kindly eyes, waiting the polite and kindly salutations that he had always received from the children of his former students.  
  
"Oh. It's you."  
  
A heart attack could not have seized Dumbledore's heart harder than those three callous, acidic words did. "My dear child," he muttered regretfully, "what have they done to you?" His eternal twinkle died and his eyes darkened to the exact shade of a stormy sea.  
  
Harry made no response but to stare coldly back at the benevolent gaze, hate evident in his emerald orbs. He then turned around and left, heading for the dubious refuge of his bedroom.  
  
"Was it Harry that stopped Voldemort?" Dumbledore queried as he settled heavily onto the forest green coach.  
  
Sirius and Remus shared a glance before admitting that they did not know. Both shared their stories from the night of the attack to the present, ending on a somber mode that had been stealthily germinating since Dumbledore's unexpected arrival.  
  
"He's been raised to hate us," Dumbledore summarised gravely, gnarled hands twiddling with his long beard idly. "I don't think the boy, strong as he is, can ever recover from conditioning that runs that deeply. It may be the doom of us all."  
  
"What do you mean?" Sirius was confused; surely Harry was no more instrumental than thousands of others who had been raised under the poisonous shadow of the Dark Lord's reign.  
  
"He's the one prophesied to bring about the end of the Dark Lord for all time," Dumbledore responded hopelessly. "But the thing about prophecies is that half of them probably were mistaken for something yet to come when the expected saviour did not come to the rescue. I fear this is the case with young Harry; the world will have need of him and the future, and he may become Voldemort's creature instead of the saviour we so desperately will need."  
  
"We'll have to fix all of that," Remus proposed determinedly. "No son of Lily and James will grow to be a Dark Wizard, regardless of his original upbringing. There must be something that we can do."  
  
"I fear that that may not be the case. I see no need to abandon hope, only to view the situation realistically. Few enough people have been able to overcome the subversion of Death Eater propaganda even when they were reared by the foremost Light families. A young boy knowing nothing else will have a perilous time breaking through even the most minor of the barriers."  
  
"Harry just needs time!" Sirius argued forcefully, eyes shining with a feral ferocity more acclimated to his canine form. "He's only been away from that hive of scum for a week!"  
  
"Time we have to give him," conceded Dumbledore wearily. "He will not be ready to start Hogwarts for another six years. Until that time, we must do our best with him. I do not think it wise to release the possibility that he was the one who setback Voldemort so severely to the public. The media would have too much negative influence on the boy, things that we must not have."  
  
"How are we supposed to work with him? He obviously hates Sirius and abhors you; I doubt he even has ambivalent feelings for anyone." Remus ran a hand through his gray-streaked hair in exasperation, heaving a heavy sigh as he did so.  
  
"The boy might begin to care, even to love again, with time. It is the softer side that we must nurture."  
  
"I doubt that he has one. From what I've seen, he's never been a child."  
  
"Be that as it may, we must continue to work with him. The Wizarding world needs him. Whether he likes it or not, we can not allow him to turn Dark. Anything like that could be disastrous, more so than Tom Riddle's fall from grace."  
  
"Maybe I can play Quidditch with him some more. He seemed to like it enough the last time. That is if he can set aside his hatred long enough to play," Sirius suggested bitterly, the sour tones all the more despairing when they came from the mouth of a usually light-hearted prankster.  
  
"Give him a chance to be the child he was never allowed to be with Voldemort. Restricting him too much at first would lead to complications that we wish to avoid. The same with granting him too much freedom; no child raised with the knowledge and use of the Dark Curses can be allowed free reign. It is a thin path that we must tread, and I fear that we will loose our balance."  
  
With warm if muted farewells to the younger men, Albus Dumbledore took his leave, promising to return weekly. Sirius and Remus discussed possible plans of action among themselves, working out the best possibilities and deploring the large number of useless or harmful solutions.  
  
Unknown to them, young Harry Potter heard it all through the use of a simple spell. He was not a Dark Lord in the making! Not a one of them had bothered to ask him what his thoughts on the matter were. They just assumed that he would follow in the footsteps of Lord Voldemort!  
  
No, he swore, he would never blindly follow another again. Yet neither would he allow himself to be moulded and shaped into a symbolic figurehead as the three men so obviously intended. He would be his own person; he would make his own decisions.  
  
Nodding to himself, he canceled the spell with a quick Finite Incantem and then began practicing and reviewing the large number of spells, curses, and hexes that he had learned. If he truly was bound to attend Hogwarts in six short years, he had best be ready.  
  
Harry would meet them on his own turf and make deals his own way. He did not need the help of those who only wanted him for the sake of some improbably prophecy or to force into a role he had no desire to fill. Especially not when they did not even bother to know him before discussing such weighty matters. Dumbledore had only spoken to him for five seconds!  
  
And so Harry made strong his resolutions and shored up his will for the battles he would undoubtedly face when he came face to face with the rest of the Wizarding world when he was admitted to Hogwarts.  
  
~**~**~  
  
A/N: There you go! Another chapter! By the way, did anyone else notice how many times I mentioned eyes in this chapter? Next chapter, Hogwarts! 


	6. Train

A/N: Okay, here's the next chapter. I'm really sorry about the lack of updates, but I've had some problems. Exams, going away for three weeks to a place with no internet access (gasp), being sick for three weeks, etc. I've even had complications from surgery!  
  
So, yeah, to make up for it, there's two chapters posted 'stead of just one.  
  
I can't look at the reviews right now, but here's a few responses:  
  
To the person who said that they wanted it to be Harry/Draco, I'm sorry. I'll read it easily enough, but I don't think I could write it. Besides, they're only in their first year and that's a tad too young for any serious pairings. Draco and Harry will both be friends of a sort, however. Maybe if I decide to write a sequel, but even then I'd be inclined to stay far away from any romantic interactions at all.  
  
To the person who said that Harry would end up good in the end, we'll see. I really like Dark! Harry fics, but this one I do think he's going to end up good. Maybe.  
  
As another note, this will be based only loosely on the Philosopher's Stone. For starters, Voldemort has only had six years instead of ten to regain his power. For another, the Wizarding world doesn't know what Harry did. To them, he's just another war orphan; sad, but not spectacular.  
  
Enough with the author's notes, on to the story!  
  
~**~**~  
  
Chapter Six  
  
~**~**~  
  
Harry slumped back against the comfortable cushions on the Hogwarts Express, wishing that he was anywhere but here. Sirius had refused to believe that any boy would not eagerly look forward to his seven years at the school of magic; Remus had merely told him he would be able to learn so much. Load of dung, both of them.  
  
Keeping his abilities secret for six years had been a challenge, one which required him to play the fool and act astonished at the simplest spells. He likely knew everything that they had to offer at Hogwarts and then some; Hogwarts would never instruct its pupils in the Dark Arts.  
  
What was he supposed to look forward to? The bonds of comradeship that always formed between the members of the same house, the prank wars and rightfully deserved detentions? Those were the body of all of Sirius' stories of his glory days, yet Harry had no interest in them. Prank wars were for children and trust was a thing for idiots.  
  
The saddest thing of all for young Harry was that he did not miss those things. Other children his age had been affected by the war, it was almost impossible for them not to be. But not a one of them had seen or done the things Harry had or been raised the way that he had. Harry did not even know there was anything that he should miss.  
  
However, just because he was unhappy was no reason to share his feelings with the world. Once someone knew what you were thinking, they could easily take advantage of you. It was a lesson pounded into him early on and one which he would never forget. Quickly, his the angry wrinkles in his face smoothed out and his posture straightened until he was the epitome of calmness.  
  
Harry sat like that for several minutes before anyone entered his compartment of the train.  
  
"Hello," a rather nervous-sounding voice greeted. "Are you a first year too?" The speaker was a timid boy with short brown hair and a clumsy look about him. "My name's Neville."  
  
Harry did not respond, just gazed coolly at the intruder in his compartment. Neville made a scared squeak and rushed to apologize. "I'm sorry, I guess you aren't a first year, but you're short and I just thought that-" The boy scurried out of the compartment and into the hallway with no more rambling.  
  
It was not long before an older girl approached him. "Move out of the way, you idiotic firstie. This compartment's off limits to little brats."  
  
"Make me move," he offered in a flat voice, gazing up at her with a hard edge to his eyes. "If you can."  
  
"Why you little. It's going to be bad for you, I dare say." She whipped out a rather short wand and flipped her black hair over one shoulder dramatically. "Krakenula!" she shouted.  
  
Harry did not even blink but the spell whizzed back at her, caching her full in the face and causing small squid-like tentacles to appear. With a horrid shriek as she felt the tentacles tickling her face, she retreated into the safety of the corridor.  
  
Harry heaved an inward sigh, wondering if there would ever be an end to the annoying deluge of students trying to pour into space already claimed as his.  
  
After another few minutes a boy his age with an aristocratic sneer and pale blond hair arrived with two muscular children flanking him like bodyguards. "You look just like your father," Harry commented, crossing his arms behind his head casually. "I expect that you're to be a Death Eater just like him."  
  
"What do you know of it? My father has a very high rank in the Ministry of Magic and some lowly Muggle like you couldn't possibly know him." The younger Malfoy's face was a perfect condenscending grin, complete with a sassy shake of his head.  
  
"I am not a Muggle or a Mudblood, unlike your Dark Lord, and I know your father was a Death Eater."  
  
"Just who do you think you are, the Minister of Magic?"  
  
"Like I would want to be an idiot like him. Harry Potter." His lips slowly sank into a self-satisfied grin as the expression on Malfoy's face grew incredulous.  
  
"But. Potter followed the Dark Lord! My father told me so!" Malfoy argued heatedly, trying to pretend that he was not confused.  
  
"And you just proved that your father was a Death Eater. Good bye." The compartment door slid close with a resounding bang as Harry moved his hand.  
  
As he thought about it, he really should not have used wandless magic in front of four people. Well, at least the girl would not easily admit that a first year had cursed her and the Malfoy incident could be explained away as a sudden jerk of the train. He settle back against the cushions comfortably, unaware of the heated whispers whirling around the train like miniature dust storms around him.  
  
~**~**~  
  
"Have you seen my toad?"  
  
"No, I haven't, but have you checked that compartment over there?"  
  
"I wouldn't go in there if I were you."  
  
"Why ever not?"  
  
"The boy in there is just terrible; he didn't say a word to me but I swore that he was going to kill me!"  
  
~**~**~  
  
"Who did this to you Sarah?"  
  
"I'd rather not say."  
  
"Come on, it can't be that embarrassing."  
  
"It was a first year."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Some little first year. He looks more like a nine year old. He didn't even say anything or move, just did this to me. He's such a monster."  
  
~**~**~  
  
"Who are you writing to?"  
  
"Father."  
  
Why? We're only halfway to Hogwarts; you can't have something to tell him yet."  
  
"Potter's here, on the train."  
  
"Potter? You must be joking."  
  
"I'm not. He's scary, and I don't think his loyalties are where they should be."  
  
"Harry Potter, a traitor? Did you ever see him when you went with your father?"  
  
"Of course I did. Something odd's happened to him, and father has to know about it."  
  
~**~**~  
  
"Have you heard about that first year?"  
  
"No, what of him?"  
  
"Everyone's saying that he cast Dark curses and talks on about all the Death Eaters he's ever known. The kid's evil for sure."  
  
~**~**~  
  
The train ride was over before it even seemed to begin, and the first years were escorted to their boat ride across the lake by a giant of a man with an uneducated accent. Harry despised him immediately.  
  
"Firs' years, o'er 'ere!" his deep voice boomed. He had a rather scraggly brown beard beneath two gargantuan lips upon a head almost half as tall as Harry. The giant ushered the first years into a small fleet of boats, four to each, and led them across the lake, pointing out Hogwarts when it first appeared around a corner, as if the huge castle would be possible to miss.  
  
A long set of stone stairs later, they were led into a large entrance hall, where a severe-looking witch with her graying hair tightly pulled into a bun beneath her old-fashioned hat greeted them sincerely.  
  
"Welcome to Hogwarts. If you will wait but a moment in here, You will soon be led into the Great Hall for your sorting." She pointed towards a spare room that the new students filed into.  
  
As soon as she left them alone, the kids burst into nervous mutterings, discussing the pros and cons of the various Houses.  
  
"Ravenclaw is for the smart ones, so I won't be sorted into there. I'm likely a Hufflepurr."  
  
"I can only be in Gryffindor. All my family have been."  
  
"I don't want Slytherin. Everyone knows how everyone in that house turns out. I'd much rather be a Ravenclaw. I've got the brains."  
  
"I never even knew there was such a thing as magic 'til I got my letter. I hope I'm in Gryffindor; it sounds by far the best."  
  
Harry sneered at this last, marking the bushy-haired girl down as a Mudblood. He would take pains to not associate with her or any of the other lesser students.  
  
"Follow me," the prim professor said over the din of the students, gathering their attention quickly. The group of forty or so was led down between two long house tables where the older years with mixed looks of curiosity and boredom. The professor, who Harry remembered had introduced as McGonagall, sat a stool and a rickety hat in the center of the raised platform that the students were crowded onto and then waited patiently.  
  
Presently, the hat began to sing, listing out the various attributes of each House. He figured that it did not matter if he listened or not; the hat would make the same decision no matter what.  
  
McGonagall then began to call out names. Harry paid almost no attention, rather apathetic to the whole situation. He did note, however, when the Mudblood was sorted into Gryffindor and the Malfoy was placed in Slytherin, neither of which really surprised him.  
  
"Potter, Harry!" Quite a few of the older Slytherins shot him surprised or expectant looks as he walked slowly forward to place the Sorting Hat on his head.  
  
He did so, hoping that the hat would not decide he belonged in Slytherin. Or Gryffindor. Definitely not Hufflepuff. Even Ravenclaw would be terrible.  
  
~**~**~ 


	7. Wreon

~**~**~  
  
Chapter Seven  
  
~**~**~  
  
The Sorting Hat slid down over his head and his face, covering everything.  
  
"Now you," it's laughing voice said within his mind, "are the most difficult person I've ever had to sort."  
  
"I've had a hard life," he answered back dryly, mentally grinning at the Hat's amused chuckles.  
  
"Very true, very true. I don't know where to begin, so I suppose I'll list the houses in alphabetical order. First off, Gryffindor. You've plenty of courage, lad, but you don't have the recklessness or the altruistic side to add on to it. And your pranks are not for fun but for revenge. And I get the feeling that you would not prefer that House."  
  
"Black was in it, the traitor."  
  
"Well, if it helps he was an easy one to place. Moving on to Hufflepuff. I daresay you would hate it there, with a bunch of loyal fools with no particular brains and almost no willpower. You'd own them all within a month."  
  
"I couldn't agree more."  
  
"The list is getting short, dear boy, so we'll find one that you want."  
  
"You could announce that there's no reason for me to be here. It's likely I know more magic than I could ever learn here."  
  
"I could, but we still have more Houses to go through first. I'll keep it in mind, but I don't give up students once they are in my grasp."  
  
"Pity, it was worth a shot."  
  
"Indeed. Next is Ravenclaw. You've the brains, but no amount of prodding housemates could convince you to study; you'll already feel that there's no reason to. And there are times when logic has no place inside your skull. Ravenclaw is out as well."  
  
"I won't like the next one, either."  
  
"I'm afraid not. You're cunning and ambitious, true enough, but your hatred for that House runs deep. It would be a mistake to put you there with all of those who think you loyal to a man you abhor. Slytherin is no fit either."  
  
"That's the last House."  
  
"Not quite, lad. There's one more, though no one's ever been sorted into it before. The founder never seemed to find anyone who would fit into her house. Now, it may be a bit hard to adjust, but you'll get used to it. You won't have many friends, though."  
  
"Friends require trust, and I don't trust anyone."  
  
"Well, if you're sure. Harry Potter, you are in WREON!"  
  
The final word was shrieked out to the Great Hall. Harry removed the Hat carefully after wishing it a fond farewell, and was pleased to see the shocked faces on not just the students, but the professors as well.  
  
The mudblood was the first to break the silence. "I've read about that House in Hogwarts: A History. It disappeared after no one was ever put into it."  
  
"Mr. Potter, if you will sit at the Gryffindor table until the end of the feast, we will deal with this later. On with the Sorting," the familiar voice of Dumbledore announced. Harry shot the elderly man a cold look but complied, choosing an empty seat far away from everyone else.  
  
The Sorting soon wrapped up, and the meal splendidly appeared before them after a few rules that Harry had no mind to; he had no doubt that he would break them anyway.  
  
He grabbed some rolls and a salad, ignoring the meats that steamed in front of him. He had seen raw human flesh, or seen it be hungrily devoured, too often for it to have any appeal to him. He finished the meal in silence and stayed where he was when the rest of the student body left in a large mass of screaming and scurrying.  
  
"Mr. Potter, if you would please come to my office. We have much to discuss." Harry followed behind the headmaster, memorizing the path out of habit. Dumbledore quietly whispered the password and motioned Harry up the revolving stair case.  
  
"Lemon drop," he asked as Harry settled in an oversized leather armchair. Harry shook his head no, and looked around the room at the four other people, those who had been introduced as the Heads of the four Houses.  
  
"How have you been, Harry?"  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Sirius and Remus are well?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"That is good to hear. Now, about your Sorting. It was most unusual." Harry did not respond. "Perhaps, despite the decision of the Hat, you might like to be placed in another House."  
  
"No."  
  
"Gryffindor, perhaps? It was the House of your parents, after all."  
  
"Black and Pettigrew were in there. I don't want anything to do with them."  
  
"What about Ravenclaw? I'm sure you are an intelligent lad."  
  
"They only debate things and there's no real action."  
  
"What about Hufflepuff? It would be easy for you to make friends."  
  
"I don't need or want friends."  
  
"Would you consider Slytherin?"  
  
Harry looked sideways at Professor Snape. "I won't be in a House that has a Head who's a Death Eater."  
  
"Professor Snape is not a Death Eater, Harry. He has been spying for us for quite some time."  
  
"Even worse."  
  
Dumbledore gave an exasperated sigh. "Then you wish to remain in Wreon?"  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
"Very well then. A timetable will be worked out for you. I shall have one of the House Elves escort you to your dormitory."  
  
~**~**~ 


	8. Wreon's Past

A/N:Now, thanks to Ferdia, you have an update. Whenever people give me bad reviews I get guilt-tripped. I do hate it when others put up author's notes as updates, so this is a TRUE update. I am really sorry, but I did feel that I should at least put up something to explain where I've been.  
  
And Ravenway, that was really cool of you to say. I'm really....surprised that anyone thinks my stuff is this good, especially when it's not even what I'm spending most of my time on.  
  
I do have another plot bunny for a sixth year dark Harry fic running around in my head, but I've been putting this story first. If anyone is interested though, tell me, and I could probably manage to get the first chapter up soon. I have it written out, but not typed.  
  
~**~**~  
  
Chapter Eight Wreon's Past  
  
~**~**~  
  
The common room Harry was escorted to was buried in dust. A few house elves were quickly working to remedy that situation, but they squeaked in surprise and disappeared when he entered. He looked around to see that it was decked out in comfortable furniture in dark purple with bronze accents. A large portrait was the focal point of the room, and Harry approached it curioiusly.  
  
"Hello," the portrait greeted warmly. The image was that of a dark young woman in her twenties. She had gold-streaked cinnamon hair that fell to her shoulders and shining golden eyes. "I am Kai Wreon, founder of this House."  
  
"I'm Harry Potter." He bowed out of respect.  
  
"You're the first student to ever be Sorted here, as I'm sure you know. Not many can fit the guidelines."  
  
"What are the guidelines?"  
  
She smiled warmly, but there was an air of sadness to the look as well. "They are actually pretty simple. All you have to do is not belong anywhere else. In a way, you have to have all the qualities of the other Houses while having none of them."  
  
"Perhaps if I tell you my story it will make this easier for you to understand. I'm not an original founder of Hogwarts, so in that way I do not fit in with the others. My story starts with my uncle, Gryffindor."  
  
By this time, Harry had found as seat on a plush velvet sofa and was listening eagerly. This story was not known by many others, he knew. Any information that only he was privy to would help him in the long run.  
  
"Godric as he is recorded in the histories was not intended to be the original founder. That place truly belongs to my father. Godric and Geoffrey Gryffindor were identical twins. Jealous of my father's power, Geoffrey slaughtered him and took his place. No one knew that the change had occurred because my uncle was a clever man. He killed my mother who witnessed the slaying of my father. To remove the final link, he tried to kill me."  
  
"However, I escaped, knowing the truth. And when I grew up I came back to take my father's rightful place. By that time Geoffrey had already driven out Slytherin and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff could put up no opposition to him. He was out to start a reign of terror, turning Hogwarts into a school of Dark magic. I stopped him."  
  
Harry grinned widely. "So the Gryffindor's are truly not as noble as their version of history would have us believe."  
  
"Indeed not. And now I have related my story to you, so the favor must be returned." Harry complied reluctantly, telling of Voldemort and his parents through clenched teeth.  
  
Wreon nodded sadly. "So you truly do belong here. The qualities of bravery, loyalty, ambition, and intelligence are yours, but you favor none over the other. You've realized that that can only lead to tragedy and pointless solidarity. I welcome you to the House of Wreon."  
  
For the first time in six years, Harry Potter almost felt like he had made a friend. Almost.  
  
~**~**~  
  
Breakfast the next morning was an awkward affair. A small table had been placed adjacent to the much larger one of Gryffindor for him. His schedule was placed there. Looking at it, he noted that all of his classes were with the Gryffindors. He frowned. Someone was trying to turn him into a hero behind his back.  
  
Harry looked up at the head table to see Dumbledore considering him gravely. Harry sneered back and gobbled up his breakfast. The eyes of the entire school seemed to be upon him. He heard his name whispered frequently, usually accompanied by rather derogatory terms. However, a few of the first years were looking at him as if he could not be too horrible.  
  
Anxious to leave before anyone tried to talk to him, Harry snatched his bag and stalked off to his first class, potions.  
  
~**~**~  
  
A/N: I know that this is really short and boring, but it's the best I can manage for right now. My hands really aren't cooperating and my brain can't figure out quite what to do with an upcoming confrontation with Draco that I have planned.  
  
I know that the part where Kai Wreon was explaining her past was rather awkward, but it's not crucially important to the story. Actually, Kai Wreon is based off of a character from the original fantasy novel I'm writing. That's just the short and heavily modified version of what she does. 


	9. Snape

Chapter Nine

Snape

Harry was, understandably, the first one to arrive in the dismal dungeon classroom.  He set up all of his supplies slowly at the table furthest back from the front, aware that he had plenty of time left until the start of class.  When he was finished he sat back in the wooden chair and began to analyze his current situation.

He was stuck in a school that had nothing to teach him among people he would rather avoid.  Most of the Slytherins, for one thing.  Their parents knew him as the closest thing Voldemort had ever had to an heir, and the offspring would likely expect him to find their master and return him to his former glory. 

On the other hand, there were those like Dumbledore.  Harry tried to remain ambivalent about the man, but his early conditioning made hating him and fearing his manipulations all too easy.  Besides, Dumbledore was the only one who held the dangerous knowledge that Harry had been the one to vanish the Dark Lord.  Knowing that, Dumbledore could only expect for Harry to join his side.

Harry, however, had other intentions. 

He was on no one's side but his own.  The light forces and the dark forces had both played too big of roles in his parents' deaths for him to consider trusting either of them.  Although the situation had not changed since his arrival at Hogwarts, the castle was such a new environment that he had to reevaluate the risks.

"Potter," a refined voice called out. 

Harry looked up  to see the Malfoy spawn.  "What do you want?"  Despite their less than friendly conversation yesterday, Draco still looked shocked at Harry's callous tone.  It took the pale boy only a moment, however, to regain his composure and fix Harry with a piercing stare. 

"I want to talk.  I know all about your family and you seem to know about mine."  Harry nodded, unsure of where Draco was heading with this.  "They both serve the Dark Lord."

"You're wrong."

"You were raised at the very stronghold of the Dark Lord!  You were taught by his Death Eaters!  You were supposed to be his strongest supporter when you grew up!"

"Things change.  I'm not like that anymore.  I'm not going to help you or be your friend or anything like that.  I don't like Death Eaters, or their children.  Voldemort is out of the picture for now, and I'm not going to do anything to bring him back into it."

"But, Potter-"

"Shut up, Malfoy.  Your master's gone.  And unless you want to reveal to the entire school that your parents should be in Azkaban, shut up.  Other kids will be coming soon."  Malfoy opened his mouth to argue back but shut it when he realized that Harry was right. 

In the next few minutes the classroom gradually filled up with chattering students.  Studying them, he found it quite easy to pick out the Mudbloods from the rest.  One of the girls in particular was obvious that she had never seen anything quite as odd as the candles that floated around the edges of the ceiling to illuminate the space.  Harry sneered in disgust.  Voldemort had been right that that sort of riffraff should not be allowed to learn anything as sacred as magic.

Further contemplation of his fellow students was cut off when the teacher entered the room.  Harry recognized the man instantly, though it had been years since he had seen him.  So Severus Snape was at Hogwarts. 

"The gods must hate me," he whispered.  "It's not enough that there are wannabe Death Eaters at the school, oh no.  There have to be real ones here too."

"Settle down, class.  I allow no interruptions.  Potions is a very exact and grueling class, and if you can't manage to keep your mouths shut for more than five minutes I fear that you will be able to learn nothing of the art."  His voice was soft and firm and he glared at the students, almost as if daring them to speak.

After calling roll he set in on a long lecture that Harry largely ignored.  For the most part, its purpose was to scare all the Mudbloods who were not intelligent enough to realize that making potions was not the easy practice that Muggle culture made it out to be.  Harry wished that Snape had skipped the talk.  The Mudbloods deserved to be killed from their own botched potions.  It would teach them to meddle where they did not belong.

After Snape finished his lecture he set the class to making an easy healing draught.  Harry finished quickly and used the extra time to make a few extra potions that could help him out later if the need to protect himself arouse.

"This is not the potion that you were supposed to make, Mr. Potter."  Harry jumped in surprise.  He had been so intent on making sure that the crushed vixen wings were added precisely on time that his brain had not registered the approach of Professor Snape. 

"I already finished it," he said quickly, pointing to the bottled potion.

"Then why is another potion in your cauldron?"

"Because I wanted to make it."  A few students tittered quietly before being silenced with a roar and glare from Snape. 

"Mr. Potter, you will stay after class to arrange a detention."

Well, Sirius would be proud of him.  Even his godfather had never gotten a detention this early in the school year.  Of course, pleasing Sirius was not at the top of his list, and the thought that he had done so only made him grumble more. 

Harry stared at Snape, watching him carefully as the man stared back at him.  The professor's fingers were steepled in front of him as he leaned back in his chair regarding his student with unreadable black eyes.  Suddenly, he leaned forward, as if reaching some conclusion, and began to speak.

"Mr. Potter.  I am well aware of your potions skills.  However, unsupervised potion brewing is highly dangerous no matter how masterful the brewer is.  I can not allow one of my students to come to any harm while in my classroom."  Snape eyed Harry carefully, trying to judge his reaction.  Harry tried not to show any emotion but was sure that at least an inkling of his thoughts escaped.  He was not idiotic enough to blow up any potions in the middle of class!

"You're a Death Eater.  You don't care about any of your students except the Slytherins." 

Snape rose from his chair, eyebrows drawn downwards in anger.  "I am the Head of Slytherin House and as such have an added responsibility towards its members.  That does not mean, however, that the safety of any of the other students, even the hapless Gryffindors, does not concern me.  And there are things about the war that you can not comprehend.  I would not make accusations of who served the Dark Lord and who did not where I in your position."

"You're not denying that you're a Death Eater?" Harry asked, honestly curious.  Just because he knew that Snape was one did not mean that Snape would not try to hide that fact.  He was working for Dumbledore, after all.  Why would he risk Harry revealing that Snape was a Dark wizard?  Did the man think that Harry still sided with Voldemort?

"You and I both know the truth.  I will not deny that I bear the Dark Mark.  I no longer serve the Dark Lord, however."

Harry could not help it; he snorted.  "No one serves him anymore.  Not unless they're serving a vanquished master."

"Do not take his disappearance so lightly!  Although the wizarding world has allowed itself to grow complacent, the Dark Lord is still abroad."

"He's dead," Harry growled stubbornly.  "The only threat that is left is the remnants of his supporters, scum like you."

Snape laughed at him mockingly.  "Do you think that Dumbledore would knowingly allow a Death Eater to teach at his school when the threat of Dark activity is still so close?  He himself even told you that a was a spy.  You are more foolish than your parents ever were."

"Don't you say anything about my parents!" Harry snapped hotly.  "You're not worthy to be the dirt they walked over."

"Mr. Potter, while I would enjoy disillusioning you about your parents, this is neither the time or the place.  I have not served the Dark Lord since you were born; I have been working with Dumbledore as a spy against him.  I still maintain some rank among the Dark Lord's supporters, which has allowed me to be a valuable asset in the fight against them.  Unless you would defile all that your parents believed in, you would not try to stop me in that role.

"I am quite aware that you harbor no feelings of support for You-Know-Who but that you would rather be left alone by the other side in the conflict as well.  I share your feelings.  This, however, has nothing to do with my reason for detaining you.  I understand that your knowledge of potions is far beyond that of the average seventh year, so I will set alternative assignments for you during class.  Any unsupervised potions brewing will result in a detention.  For now, however, I believe you have another class to attend."

"You mean that you're not going to give me a detention?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Hardly.  I wouldn't give your mutt of a godfather the pleasure of being able to send me a Howler about it." 

Harry's lips turned upwards slightly, the first genuine smile he had had for years.

A/N:  Ah, Snape.  I'm afraid that he and Harry are more alike than either of them are willing to admit.  They'll have a friendship of sorts, because Harry can respect Snape in a way that he wasn't willing to do with Sirius and Remus.  As far as he's concerned, all Sirius ever did was show up and cause his parents to be killed and then expect for Harry to love him.  Sirius looked for Harry to be James, but Harry wasn't interested in being his father for Sirius.  He didn't want to have to automatically fight with the Light wizards just because Sirius decided that he should.  Snape is different, because he is not concerned with making Harry into someone he's not.  Instead, Snape's only interest is in keeping Harry alive so that he can make his own decisions in life.

And yes, a bit of a plot is beginning to form in my mind.  The next chapter will contain Defense Against the Dark Arts, one subject that is going to cause Harry a lot of trouble.  Especially because the professor is not Quirrell, but an auror obsessed with finding Death Eaters.

Rubs hands together and grins wickedly  Oh, I really shouldn't do this to poor Harry, but it'll be ever so much fun. 

Okay, and to umm... I think it was Ravenway (if I got the reviewer wrong, I'm sorry, I'm typing this up on my Journada which doesn't have internet access so I can't check the identity right now) who said that I should be worried about making Dumbledore too eager to mould Harry... yeah, I think that you're right and I was heading too far in that direction.  I've tried to correct it a little bit because I don't think that's how Dumbledore means his actions to be interpreted:  I think that he put Harry near the Gryffindors not because he wanted to make the boy into one but because he didn't want him to have to deal with the Slytherins.  Harry, because of his upbringing, is inclined to see that differently.

And I honestly didn't expect for Godric to be evil either.  That just sort of happened.  I'm glad it did though, because I am honestly tired of how Slytherin is demonized while Gryffindor is immortalized as a kind of god. 

With that, I think I'll end my rant and begin work on the next chapter.


	10. Mark

Chapter Ten

Mark

The professor standing at the front of the room regarding the class of eager first years with a critical eye seemed an odd choice for someone to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.  She was a short, slim young woman of Asian descent dressed in unrelieved black.  Her tilted brown eyes seemed able to assess the threat of a person instantly. 

"Defense Against the Dark Arts is your most important class here at Hogwarts," she lectured, looking at each student individually.  "I, Professor Song, will be the one to instruct you in it.  The threat of Dark wizards is nearly constant, and You-Know-Who could return at any moment.  It is of the utmost importance to be prepared to fight against the curses of these wizards.

"Many of you lost someone during the war.  Even those of you who are Muggleborn probably know someone who died as a result of You-Know-Who's attempts to take over the wizarding world.  With so many dead and even more people at risk, it is extremely important that we can all identify a Dark wizard and defend ourselves against them."

"What about the Killing Curse?" someone asked.  "There's no defense against that."

"You won't a counter to it by the time I'm done with you," the professor promised.  "In this class, you'll master dueling.  If you can jump out of the way, then you won't die.  I'm not telling you that you should think of Avada Kedavra as a trivial thing- none of the Unforgivables are matters to be taken lightly.  Instead, I'm going to see to it that you are all well prepared."

One of Harry's eyebrows shot up.  This woman was an idiot if she thought that you could just dodge the Killing Curse and prance away as if it had been a tickling charm.  If things were that easy than the death toll would never have risen into the thousands.  Most of the time victims of the curse were not even aware that they were in danger, and even if they were, it was hard to defeat someone who is willing to use whatever means necessary to defeat you.

"The first thing we will learn today is how to recognize the symbol of evil.  Prepare yourselves."  Professor Song stood poised with her wand drawn as if ready to cast a spell.  The students, especially the Muggleborns, glanced around nervously.  "Mosmordre!"

A sickly green light shot out of her wand, searing across Harry's vision.  He closed his eyes quickly, trying to forget the same rush of emerald illumination that had instantly ended the lives of both of his parents.  He heard startled cried and even a high pitched squeal, causing his eyes to open.

The morbid symbol of Voldemort, the Dark Mark, hung in the air at the front of the classroom.  The empty eye sockets of the skull seemed at once understandably repelling and inexplicably tantalizing, as if drawing him in with their promised whispers of the return to his simpler and happier childhood.  The hissing snake weaving in and out of the skull's grinning teeth caught Harry's attention.  He glared at the familiar reptile and averted his eyes from the glowing symbol. 

All of the students were shocked.  Most of the girls were sobbing wildly and Harry caught tears leaking from the corners of the eyes of more than one male.  The children wore a wide range of expressions from utter fury and abhorrence to an almost welcoming grin.  Draco, Harry noted, did not seem at all uncomfortable with the Mark. 

The Mudbloods looked confused but even they knew enough to be scared.  They had probably heard horror stories of the Mark, but they had supposed them to be fictioius urban legends.  Harry shut his eyes, mind disgusted at their ignorance.  Voldemort was almost more of a threat to Muggles than he was to wizards and yet the fools had no realistic sense of their peril. 

How could they know? the rational part of his mind argued.  It's not like Voldemort sent them calling cards announcing his intentions to totally destroy their civilizations. 

If they were smart enough to notice things they would have realized that something was wrong.  Even with Aurors working to erase all Muggle memories of magical conflicts, there were enough odd deaths that Muggle weoponry could not account for that they almost had to turn to a magical explanation.

"Now you have no reason to be frightened.  You-Know-Who is not at this castle, and we are not being attacked.  I showed you his symbol merely so that you could be aware of its meaning and importance."  Professor Song's voice had a hard edge to it; she could not believe that the children were scared of such a measly apparation that had absolutely no ability to harm them.

"You-Know-Who's sign, it's his sign, he's going to come and kill us all and torture us and-" a dark Indian girl with the Gryffindor crest on her robe screamed, gesticulating wildly in the air with her arms.  Her dark eyes shown with a panicked light. 

Those proudly bearing Slytherin colours laughed at her expense; the girls' cheeks flushed a deep red and she cut off suddenly.  "Scared of the Dark Lord?" a pale and ugly Slytherin girl taunted.  "He'd be all too glad to kill a bunch of Muggle-loving fools like your parents, Patel."

"Miss Parkinson, that is quite enough!  Come with me to the headmaster's office immediately.  The rest of you remain in your seats and behave!"  Professor Song hauled the mean Slytherin girlout the door with her.  The class was silent for a moment as the door closed behind their instructor.  Then there was a large shuffling of seats until there were two sides to the conflict. 

The Gryffindors had gathered on one side of the room, the boys stony faced and the girls working to comfort their embarassed comrade.  One of them, a rash looking red head with worn robes had even drawn his wand and was holding it in front of him as if ready to hex someone.

The Slytherins were on the opposing side, laughing patronizingly at their fellow students.  They did not seemed concerned that one of their number was missing, if anything, they were even more secure that they could overpower the Gryffindors.  Malfoy in particular looked smug, leaning back against a stone pillar with his arms crossed self-assuredly across his chest.

"She must not have been teaching for very long, to leave the Slytherins and the Gryffindors alone like this," he observed slowly, grinning widely.  "After all, she should know that the Gryffindors are a bunch of wimps who can't stand up to a little baiting."

"You watch it, Malfoy," the red head smarted back. 

"Am I supposed to be scared, Weasley?  Do you honestly think you could do anything to me?"

"Your father isn't here to protect you."

"And neither is yours.  Go on and hex me.  If you end up in trouble, there's nothing your father could do about it; he doesn't have the influence."

"At least my father didn't bribe his way out of Azkaban."

"It's not like you have the money."  Weasley sputtered in anger.  He was out of attacks for Malfoy, so he turned his attention to Harry instead.

"And what side are you on?" he demanded, freckles bulging out from his red skin. 

Malfoy answered for him.  "He's on our side."

"I don't have any part in your stupid squabble," Harry informed them both.  "If you'd open your eyes wide enough to notice, I haven't joined either of you."  It was true; Harry was calmly sitting in his desk watching the others argue. 

"You can't just sit in the middle like that," a black Gryffindor stated boldly.  "Either you're with us or you're with them."

"I'm not with either of you.  It's not like this fight matters anyway.  None of you know enough magic to even make the others' nose bleed."

"And you think you do?" another boy challenged.  He had sandy hair.  "You don't know who my father is, obviously.  He's one of the top Aurors, Frank Longbottom.  He's taught me how to deal with Dark scum like the Slytherins."

"Of course I do.  You don't know who I am either."  Harry spoke in a calm and measured tone that clearly infuriated the Longbottom boy.

"Stupefy!"  A blinding flash of light shot forth from his wand.  Harry did not respond, watching calmly as the spell rushed towards him.  "Hah!" Longbottom shouted victoriously as the light hit the other boy.

"I told you so," Harry said.  Longbottom stared at him dumbly with his mouth hanging open. 

"But-" he stammered, pointing at Harry dumbly.

"Potter isn't one of you stupid Gryffindors," Malfoy cut him off caustically.  "He was raised among much better company."

"Hardly," Harry snorted.  Malfoy frowned at him but did not press the point.       

Professor Song entered the room before anyone had a chance to do anything else.  "I thought that I told you to remain in your seats," she noted with a slight furrowing of her brow.  The first years scampered back to their seats, though they still retained the same basic orientation in regards to one another. 

"Now, as I was saying, before you can begin to fight the forces of Darkness, you have to be able to recognize them.  Does anyone know how to do that?" 

Although Harry and at least several others must have known, no one raised their hand.  Finally, a frizzy-haired Mudblood raised her hand.  "How can you tell if someone's evil just by looking at them?  Isn't that a bit biased?"

"It would be, Miss Granger, if it were not for the ways in which you recognize a Death Eater.  You can not just immediately glance over at someone and say that they are evil or not.  Instead, you must look for certain signs.  The Dark Mark is not merely shot off after an attack; it is also imprinted on the skin of each and every Death Eater."

A few people gasped in surprise.  "Now, I'll need a volunteer."  No one raised their hand.  "How about..." Professor Song consulted the roll momentarily," Mr. Potter?"

Harry rose from his seat nervously and walked to the front of the classroom.  "Mr. Potter, if you will kindly roll back your sleeve."  Knowing where this was heading, he rolled up his right sleeve to the elbow.

"Your other arm, Mr. Potter."

Gulping, Harry slowly obeyed.

Pressed into the pale flesh of his lower arm was the ghastly visage of the Dark Mark.  It was a pale 

gray color, but still highly noticeable.  The entire class, including the Slytherins, gasped in shock.  Harry shut his eyes against the onslaught of babbling students.

Longbottom's voice was the loudest.  "We have to arrest him, Professor!  He's a Death Eater!  We can't let Death Eater scum run loose around Hogwarts!" 

"Quiet down class, quiet down!" Professor Song yelled, but her words had no effect.  Several students looked ready to bolt for the door.  Others attempted to shield themselves behind their desks. 

The braver ones drew their wands and advanced on their classmate.  Some of the Slytherins debated whether or not they should risk defending one who had shown himself to be their fellow but quickly decided against in in the inerests of self-preservation.

Harry's temper was beginning to rise, and with it, his magic.  He struggled to keep his powers under contol, but the anger and fear were too much for him.  The magic broke around the walls he had attempted to hastily erect around it.

Raw power flooded through the room, extinguishing all the torches.  Glass blew out of windows, scattering across the floor.  Rainbow patterns flashed and glinted dangerously as a harsh wind began to rush through the wind, throwing those still standing to their feet. 

"The door's locked!" shouted a student who had reached the door.  "We're all going to die!" 

Harry shrieked as his magical power rose to dangerous levels.  His body could not handle the added stress for much longer.  His feet left the floor and his back arched painfully as he began to glow with multicoloured light.  Slowly, then picking up speed, he began to twirl around.  The scared and confused faces of his classmates whirled around him until he lost sight of them and they disappeared ito a gigantic blur. 

The winds still tearing through the room gave one last final burst before slowing as Harry fell to the floor.  Hastily, he scrambled to his feet and rushed out through the door that flung itself open for him, leaving everyone staring after him.

A/N:  MWAA HAH HAH HAH!  I FEEL SO POWERFUL!  HAHAHA! 

On the other hand, I feel so sorry for poor Harry.  It's not his fault he's got a Dark Mark.


	11. Run

Chapter Eleven

Run

Harry ran blindly, fleeing the sight of the ordeal as quickly as he could.  He had told Sirius that he should not come to Hogwarts, that no good could possibly come of it.  He had been right!  Of course, even the warm feeling he received from yelling "I told you so!" as he ran could not stop the other emotions that welled up inside of him.

For the first time in years, he was well and truly frightened.  The discovery of a Death Eater still prompted a race to kill of the foe similar to that of a Muggle witch hunt.  Dumbledore, though he had shielded Harry from the Ministry and the media for years, would not be able to do anything about this.  If he was lucky he might be locked up in Azkaban for the rest of his life.

Harry finally collapsed in an out of the way chamber that looked as if it had not seen use in generations.  Old-fashioned tables were pushed to one side and a thick layer of dust covered the stone floors.  "I can't Apparate away," he told himself, trying to find a logical option.  "And anyone who sees me will try apprehend me or call the Aurors or something.  There's nothing for me to do!  It's hopeless!"

"Now, now, Potter, we both know that that's not the case," a sickeningly familiar voice called out. 

Harry jumped to his feet and whirled about, breathing heavily.  "You can't be here; you're dead."

Standing in the middle of the room was Lord Voldemort, inky black robes rippling around his body and red eyes staring at Harry in amusement.  "Obviously I am here, and I'm not dead.  I almost was, though, thanks to you."

"You're welcome," Harry ground out, snarling as Voldemort laughed.  "What's so funny?"

"You are.  As much as you hate to admit it to yourself, you are much like me."

"I'm nothing like you.  I'm not a murderer."  Harry's eyes snapped in defiance and his chin rose.

"And yet you just admitted that you almost killed me."  Voldemort began to pace back and forth slowly, twirling his wand lazily between the pale, tapered fingers of his right hand.

"Killing you wouldn't be a crime.  You deserve to die."

"Harry, Harry," Voldemort sighed, stopping his pacing to approach the young boy.  "Your anger should not be directed at me.  I was not the one who ruined your life.  That was Dumbledore and that Sirius Black."

"I hate them too.  I just hate you more," Harry responded stubbornly. 

Voldemort chuckled again.  Harry shook at the sound.  "You used to love to make me laugh," Voldemort reflected, his voice thick with a fake wistful air.  "And now you shiver at the sound of my mirth.  What went wrong between us, Harry?  I loved you like a father, and I offered you the world."

"You killed my parents," Harry answered with narrowed eyes.  "And a world you had altered would be no world that I would want."

There it was again.  The spine-tingling onslaught of Voldemort's merriment.  Harry recoiled reflexively, scampering backwards until his back was pressed up firmly against the wall.  "Leave me alone, you monster," Harry commanded weakly, trying desperately not to let the sight of the still laughing Voldemort affect him.  "You've ruined my life so much already."

Voldemort advanced on him slowly, enjoying the terror that spasmed across Harry's face every time he took another step.  Finally, he was close enough that Harry could have touched him with almost no effort.  "You will learn Harry, you will learn." 

Harry sank down, knees shaking too hard for him to remain standing.  Maybe he was hallucinating.  In this case, that would be a good thing.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was in ruins.  Broken pieces of wood were scattered haphazardly amid sharp crystals of broken glass.  Parchments and quills were ripped into tiny pieces, some of the feathers still floating on the light breeze coming in through a few holes in the stone castle walls.  Ink was spilled over everything.

Dumbledore examined the room gravely, eyes darkened to a stormy gray.  "Harry, my boy, milady Fate has it in for you." 

Word of the outbreak had spread through the school with the fervency of a rampaging Hippogriff.  Although no students had been injured, according to the rumors there mere at least two dozen bloody bodies being secretly disposed of by the faculty.  The discovery of the Dark Mark had been blown into Voldemort appearing in the middle of the classroom along with a score of Death Eaters.

The rumors, unfortunately, were always precise about one thing, unfortunately: that odd Potter kid was a Death Eater. 

For some reason, everything was destined to be difficult for the boy.  He had already dealt with so much while he still should have been playing Exploding Snap and laughing with friends.  The poor boy had had his childhood ripped away from him and the time used instead to make him into a bitter, twisted soul. 

Albus turned with a sigh to find Severus regaring the room with an almost approving eye.  "He has a lot of power," the Potions master noted.

"It is to what ends that power will be used that concerns me," Dumbledore replied gravely.  "This will be a major setback."

"You must have known, or at the very least suspected, that he would bear the Mark of the one who raised him.  Appointing Song to teach her was a foolish thing to do."

"Voldemort has never before Marked a child so young, but I should have realized that Harry is an exception unto himself.  And the only reason that Song is here is because the Ministry decided that they needed more control over the curriculum here.  The Ministry will not be happy with this turn of events."

Snape nodded.  "That is why I am here.  The Minister is requesting- demanding, really- a meeting with you."

"Leave me alone," Harry ordered.  "What's the point of making me even more miserable?"

"I'm here to help you, Harry."

Harry laughed bitterly.  "If it wasn't for you branding me like some animal I wouldn't be in this situation."

"It is hardly my fault that your Mark was discovered by an overzealous Auror."  Voldemort started pacing again, red eyes flashing with conviction.  "You were once my most loyal follower.  I see no reason that you could not be again."

"I'll never obey you!" Harry cried vehemently, shaking his head firmly.  "I'm not on your side of this anymore!"

"But you are not on theirs."  The statement caught him off-guard. 

"Well, no, but-"

"Why, then," Voldemort asked smoothly, "should we not unite to destroy a common enemy?  After all, there will be plenty of time for you to kill me after Dumbledore and his ridiculous Order of the Phoenix is destroyed."

"Why don't I join with Dumbledore and defeat you?" Harry wondered aloud.  "I'd be doing the same thing."

"Ah, but there is one fundamental difference between Dumbledore and I."  Voldemort smiled, a serpent's smile, the smile of a madman who retained just enough sanity to not be self-destructive.  His red eyes shone with strength and Harry could feel himself being drawn in.  He wanted to believe in what Voldemort was telling him. 

"You see, Harry, Dumbledore is blinded by his position.  To him, there is no gray area.  Either you are with him or against him, there is no middle ground.  I, however, have no problem with you being not entirely on my side."

Harry closed his eyes, trying to breathe deeply.  He did not want to give in, but at the same time...

Voldemort was the closest thing to family that he had left.  Voldemort, until that one decisive moment, had never betrayed him.  The Dark Lord had always been there for him when he was younger. 

"If you'll remember, Harry," Voldemort's insidious voice continued smoothly," I offered your parents a choice.  They did not have to die.  They chose their deaths.  I did not want to kill you either.  I regret now that I ever tried to do so.  I allowed myself to be blinded by my rage.  Not anymore, Harry.  I realize the error of my ways.  Join me, Harry."

"I... I don't know..." he mumbled, cradling his head in his hands uncomfortably. 

_You should join with him,_ a voice in his head whisphered._  He is trying to help you.  Join with him, and become powerful again.  Voldemort will seat you at his right hand.  You can have your revenge against Black and Lupin._

"Get out of my head!" Harry screamed.  "I don't want to join you!"

"Don't you remember things the way they used to be, Harry?  They can go back to the way they used to be.  All you have to do is listen to me."    

Voldemort drew out his wand and began to wave it in the air in intricate patterns.  "Remember, Harry, remember." 

A wave of darkness of overtook him and Harry lost consciousness.


	12. Visions

Ya, ya, I know, it's been a freaking long time since I updated. I don't really have much of an excuse. Part of it is I just didn't like this story. I really didn't think it was that good. But since people have been reviewing, I guess that means they disagree.

I've spent most of my writing time working on my other story, Irredeemable. It's a load better than this one, but it is slash. I've said it before, but this story will not contain slash. When I started it, I felt I was too immature to write any sort of romance, hetero or homo. So there will still be no romance. Kid's just eleven, anyway.

Sorry if it's horrendous. In addition to Irredeemable, I've also got two other plot bunnies bouncing around in my head. Well, more than two, but two main ones that I'm bothering to write down. And that's just Harry Potter.

So, anyway, here it goes

Chapter Twelve

_Wide green eyes, flaming emerald like burning liquid copper, focused in on the small puzzle, pupils narrowed with intense concentration. He would make this work!_

_Three year old Harry Potter had his legs folded neatly beneath him, plain black robes pooling around his slight frame, slim fingers wrapped around a delicately carved wooden box. He was not sure if it did anything or if there was anything inside (shaking had produced no satisfactory results), but he was determined to find out. _

_There was no way to open it. However, that was not something to deter Harry. He could make it work._

_There was not even a seam that he could pry at with his nimble fingers, no lock to poke and prod and not even a glimmer of a magical seal._

_Whatever it was, it was intended to be child-proof._

_Harry loved breaking child-proof locks. _

_"What have we here?" a bemused voice said from behind him. With deft movements, the wooden box was secreted away in his voluminous sleeves and he looked merely to be playing a quiet game by himself. _

_Voldemort crouched down next to him, red eyes meeting wide, innocent green._

_"Hello, Uncle!" Harry cried out cheerfully, smiling briefly and then returning to making odd gestures with his hands. He was quite good at pretending to be doing nothing at all. Most, even his own parents, thought him an odd child, with his strange solitary . But Harry just had never had others to play with, and so was content to amuse himself._

_"And what are you doing, young Harry?" Voldemort inquired, pushing back the boy's hood from his forehead. _

_"Playing!"_

_"With what?"_

_"Nothing!" Harry grinned, well aware that Voldemort knew of the box hidden up his sleeve. _

_"Really?" Quickly, Voldemort reached up into Harry's sleeve and withdrew the box. He examined it curiously. "What were you doing with this?"_

_"I found it. It's magic, isn't it?"_

_"Yes, yes it is, Harry," Voldemort replied fondly, ruffling the boy's hair. "Would you like me to teach you how to use it?"_

_Harry did not have to make an effort; his eyes grew wide of their own will. "Really?" he asked, half-disbelieving._

_"If you've found it and have been experimenting with it, I don't see why not." Voldemort drew his wand smoothly and tapped the box, whisphering an incantation just loudly enough for Harry to hear._

_The box opened slowly, revealing glimmering lights of silver and emerald._

_"Wow." Harry stared at the marvelous toy, transfixed, missing Voldemort's grin of smug satisfaction._

_"But why?"_

_Harry was settled on his stomach on a red carpet, feet idly kicking the air behind his head. One hand was used to prop up his chin while the other picked idly at the thick strands of carpet beneath him._

_"Why what?"_

_"Why is he a bad man?"_

_Voldemort paused a moment to consider how to frame his response. He was sitting behind an elegant black oak desk, reading reports from his spies and occasionally scratching out orders with his quill. It was Harry's weekly visit; once a week he spent a day with the Dark Lord, who instructed him on magic or politics or language or whatever else struck his fancy. _

_Harry, with his inquisitive mind, soaked in everything. _

_Voldemort stretched his arms out in front of him, cracking his knuckles for good measure. "Because Dumbledore thinks, Harry, that he is god. He believes steadfastly that he can manipulate the lives of those around him without any consequence. If he could, he would order the world to his liking."_

_" But why is that so bad? Wouldn't people be nice to each other then?"_

_"Yes, but think about other things. Do you like sherbert lemons?"_

_Harry stuck out his tongue and shook his head enthusiastically. Voldemort laughed at the comical display, which made Harry grin. _

_"Well, Dumbledore does. If he had control of the world, he'd make everyone eat them. And you wouldn't like that."_

_"Oh." It certainly did make sense._

_Voldemort nodded and smiled and turned back to his work. _

_"Do you like sherbert lemons?"_

_"No. Ghastly little things. I can't stand citrus flavours."_

_Harry nodded grandly. "So then you can make the world be like you want it to be, right? Because then I'd never have to eat a sherbert lemon!"_

_Voldemort's chuckles filled the room._

Hundreds of other scenes passed through his mind: when Voldemort had given him his first wand, or when he'd been taught to cast a spell properly for the first time. And in all of them he was happy and content.

He opened his eyes wearily to see the room once again empty save for himself. "I don't care about those things," he told himself aloud. "That was a long time ago. I was just a kid. I didn't know any better."

But still the doubts lingered.

Dumbledore greeted the contingency from the Ministry of Magic in his office. The party consisted of Minister Fudge and some of his senior officials, including Lucius Malfoy and Dolores Umbridge. Dumbledore could just feel a headache coming on, and fought to keep for rubbing his temples with age-wrinkled fingers.

Fudge burst in an a rush of pinstriped cloak, hand shaking a dark cane fiercely, completely forgetting to remove his lime green bowler. Dolores Umbridge followed at a more stately pace, though shee, too, seemed to rush forward in an attempt to pin Dumbledore with her squint-eyed gaze.

Lucius Malfoy, of coures, was much too civilized to rush anywhere, and instead strolled briskly, leather gloves slapping one leg while his cane, a family heirloom of considerable value, tapped the floor with each step. Lucius had a distinct smirk on his face, as if he knew more than he should. He probably did.

"What is the meaning of this, Dumbledore?" Fudge demanded, whipping around his cloak and threatening the security of several of Dumbledore's trinkets. "Why is there a Marked student running around loose in Hogwarts? He's probably already cursed half the students by now and-"

"Minister," Dumbledore interrupted calmly, "the situation does bear some explaining.

"I'd say it does," Umbridge agreed snootily, sticking her nose up in the air.

"I, for one, am most anxious to hear your... " Lucius' lips twisted into a sneer "... explanations."

_I'll just bet you do, Lucius Malfoy. After all, you half-raised the boy, if what I've gathered is correct._

"The student in question is one Harry Potter. His parents were, unfortunately, forced to serve Voldemort from the time he was but a year old. For the formative years of his life, he lived in constant contact with the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, which deeply impacted him. After Voldemort was defeated, he was taken to live with his guardians. He is not a threat to anyone."

"This still does not explain the Mark on his arm! Only loyal Death Eaters get those! There would be no reason to Mark him unless he was a Death Eater!"

"Harry Potter was marked in order to use as leverage against his parents. If they ever found a way to escape from Voldemort's clutches, the Ministry would not take in two Marked parents with a Marked toddler. That is it, no more."

"He will have to be taken into custody!" Fudge stormed, red in the face. "Lucius will see to it."

"Of course, Minister," Lucius answered smoothly with an elegant nod of his head. "I will attend to the matters personally."

"Mr. Potter is a student of Hogwarts and as such-"

"Mr. Potter is a threat to the real students of Hogwarts and as such-"

"Mr. Potter is no threat to anyone and as such-"

"He will be taken into custody, and that is final. Don't worry, Dumbledore, we'll return him if he is as innocent as you say."

The three turned to leave the room, Lucius hiding a self-satisfied smile behind a cough.

"You'll only turn him even more against us," Dumbledore told them after they had left, "and then we'll have no hope at all."


	13. Arrest

Hey everyone. Your reviews were awesome and I really appreciate them. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time or space to respond to them all in the chapter. So if you'd like a response, leave your e-mail address in your review and I'll send you one.

Bleaker Beginnings

Chapter Thirteen

Unsure of what to do, Harry wandered through the halls aimlessly. He was doomed anyway, so there was no point in trying to rush or to attempt to evade his fate. As soon as the Ministry found out, he'd be taken away to Azkaban and that would be the end of him.

He kept his wand in his hand though. Just in case.

Rounding a corner, he spotted a distant but distinct figure. "Lucius Malfoy," he growled under his throat, grip tightening on his wand.

Lucius appeared to see him as well, and immediately headed directly for the slim boy. Harry set his feet a good two feet apart and held his wand out in front of him, ready for a fight. He didn't know what Malfoy's father was doing at the school, but he'd bet a thousand galleons that it had something to do with Voldemort.

"Mr. Potter, on the request of-"

"Leave me alone, Death Eater."

Lucius' gray-blue eyes narrowed; he had read his sons report, but seeing the obstinance of the Potter boy himself still came as a shock. "I assure you, Mr. Potter, I was under the influence of the Imperious Curse during the reign of the Dark Lord and have since directed all my efforts towards charities and helping the Ministry of Magic."

Harry snorted. "I'm not dense, Lucius. You were as fervent as any, and your Mark is one of the darkest."

"The past is in the past, boy, and it would be best for you to leave it alone," Lucius whispered warningly, hand tightening subtlely on the cane where Harry knew he stored his wand.

"Love to; it can't leave me alone."

"Charming as always, Mr. Potter, but there are more important matters at hand. The Ministry has ordered your arrest and-"

"You're here to whisk me off to Voldemort, where I should promptly fall to his feet in gratitude and become his loyal little lapdog," Harry finished dryly.

"On the contrary, it is my duty to arrest you. Stupefy." The timbre of the man's voice did not change at all as he said the stunning spell, and Harry was unprepared for the suddeness. His eyes slid shut instantly and he collapsed in a heap.

He awoke to bright lights and staring eyes. Instinctively he reached for his wand. It was missing, of course, and he eyed the three sets of eyes with equal amounts of suspicion, abhorrence, and cold calculation.

The man in the middle was easily recognizable as the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. His graying hair was combed back from a high forehead and he clutched a lime green bowler hat as if the accesory lent him some air of authority.

To his right was a squat, toad-like woman Harry didn't recognize but immediately disliked. And to the left of the Minister was Lucius Malfoy, cool and collected as usual.

"Mr. Potter," the Fudge began quickly, "why do you follow You-Know-Who?"

"Did. Past tense. Because he hates sherbert lemons."

All three of his interrogators blinked. "Care to explain?" Lucius ventured in his sophisticated drawl. Harry just shrugged and repeated that Voldemort hated sherbert lemons.

"When did you recieve the Dark Mark?"

"When I was three. It was a birthday present. My cake that year was black with green icing in the shape of a skull." Lucius smiled in remembrance before quickly hiding his grin behind a frown of boredom.

"Why are you being insubordinate to your Minister, boy?" the woman demanded, pudgy face flushing a violent violet.

"Because he's an idiot. And I don't like his hat. Much too bright."

Fudge was the next one to phrase a quetion. "What the blazes are you smoking?"

"Oh, I don't smoke. It's much too hard to cast Unforgivables when your lungs are clogged up with mucus and all that."

Fudge's eyes literally popped out of his head and Lucius Malfoy chuckled before quickly recovering. The woman had quite a differnt reaction, tugging on the sleeve of the Minister's pinstriped robe anxiously.

"A confession! Let's feed him to the Dementors immediately!"

"Umbridge, don't be ridiculous. He's merely being pert."

"At the very least, we should administer Veritaserum!"

"Are you insane?" Lucius inquired at the same time Harry informed her, "Veritaserum has proven detrimental to the growth of adolescents' brains, and you don't want me to go insane and kill you all, now do you?"

"A death threat!" Umbridge declared, shaking her fist triumphantly. "Throw him into Azkaban!"

"If he really wanted to murder you," Lucius noted wryly, "I doubt that he would just inform us before."

Fudge cleared his throat, a failed attempt at asserting his authority. "Mr. Potter, what intention did you have in showing your Dark Mark to the entire class?"

"I intended to summon Lord Voldemort to kill them all, promptly take over the world, kill all the Muggles and Mudbloods, and all that fun stuff." Lucius' mouth quirked upwards in a small smile. "After that, I intended to take over hell and damn all who I felt were unworthy to blazing fires of eternal condemnation. Then I thought I'd take a lunch break and gnaw on the souls of the unborn."

Outraged, Fudge stormed out of the room, trailed closely by Umbridge who muttered about killing him some more.

Lucius hung back for a moment. "At this rate, Potter, you'll be long dead before you have a chance of being rescued."

To that, Harry had no smart response.


	14. Home Sweet Home

_**It's an actual update! Yay! Well, I've already started another chapter, but I'm still making up this fic as I go along, so oh well. Wish me luck and thanks for reading and/ or reviewing!**_

Harry fell forward onto his knees, bruising his skin against the concrete floor. Four robed and masked Death Eaters flanked a wooden door. Lucius Malfoy stood in the center, smirking.

"I really rather would've stayed at the Ministry," Harry commented, levering himself to his feet.

"But then you would not have returned to your home," Lucius told him, offering a hand to help Harry up.

With an angry glare Harry swatted the hand away, standing on his own. "This stopped being my home the moment Voldemort killed my parents."

Lucius shrugged eloquently. "Your room is still here, as are all your things." He gestured towards the door as the four anonymous Death Eaters moved to flank the small boy.

Harry scowled fiercely, but allowed Lucius to lead him towards his old life.

"What do you mean he's gone?" Sirius raged, pacing back and forth in front of Fudge. Are you trying to tell me that you arrested my godson and then you lost him?"

Fudge sniffed, puffing up his chest indignantly. "Your godson is a Death Eater and he has clearly used his dark arts to escape! We have instituted a manhunt and-"

"A manhunt?" Sirius blanched. "A manhunt! Harry's only eleven years old and he's been at Hogwarts for all of a week! He's far too young to be a Death Eater!" Sirius stopped pacing, advancing towards the minister with a threatening air. "I've raised Harry since he was five years old and I know for a fact that he is no Death Eater."

"He has the Dark Mark!" Fudge shrieked, slamming his bowler hat onto his desk.

"Yes, this is true," Remus interrupted, holding Sirius back with a firm hand. "Harry received the Dark Mark when he was three years old. Neither he nor his parents had any choice in the matter; they were at the mercy of the Dark Lord."

"Then you admit he is a Death Eater!"

"Half of your most trusted officials have the Dark Mark! Yet you are content to believe that they were under the influence of the Imperius curse. Why will you not accept the innocence of one little boy?"

Fudge ignored Remus, turning instead towards Sirius. "If you would please get this dog out of my face and my office-"

Remus' eyes blazed and he strode forward quickly, hauling the minister up by his collar.

"I may be a werewolf," he snarled, pushing fudge against the wall, "but I would know if Harry was a Death Eater. You had no right to arrest him in the first place and now that he's gone you're going to have to pay the price."

Fudge narrowed his eyes in loathing, his jaw protruding fiercely. "I am the Minister of Magic and I have both the right and the responsibility to have detained Mr. Potter. You, however, have no right to barge into my office and abuse me."

"If you ever touch Harry again," Remus promised slowly, "I will rip out your throat."

Harry stepped into his old room with great trepidation, shutting the door behind him carefully. Nothing had changed.

The bed seemed smaller than he remembered, but that was probably just because he had grown bigger. Large black wooden bookshelves covered the wall across from him, stuffed with magical tomes and a few novels. A stuffed dragon standing almost a full metre tall leaned against a green overstuffed chair, its red and gold scales glittering faintly.

Harry sighed, flopping down into the chair. Nothing had changed at all… except for him.

What was he supposed to do now? The Ministry was convinced of his guilt. Hogwarts offered no hope of solace. As for Sirius and Remus, they'd likely thrown him out as soon as he stepped through the door.

He was stuck.

The door opened revealing the tall thin form of Voldemort. "Welcome back," he greeted, smiling at Harry broadly. "It is a pleasure to have you reside with me once more."

Harry shrugged, hoping to make this encounter as brief as possible. "How much do I owe you?"

"Owe me?" Voldemort raised a dark thin brow. "What could you possibly owe me?"

"For room and board," Harry replied, setting his shoulders back and looking directly at Voldemort.

Voldemort laughed loudly; Harry had to forcibly restrain himself from shuddering.

"You don't owe me anything, my dear boy. It is, after all, my duty to care for you." Harry's eyes widened and narrowed quickly, nostrils flaring. Voldemort smirked, waiting for Harry to ask him exactly what he meant. Harry, though was feeling incredibly ornery at the moment and had no wish to cooperate.

"It is my duty," Voldemort continued after a tense silence, "to care for you. Your parents appointed me your guardian in the case of their deaths."

"Somehow, I don't think the Wizarding courts would find you a suitable caretaker."

Voldemort smiled again, showing his teeth predatorily. "The Wizarding courts are little more than a formality in this and have no choice in the matter. A will is a legally binding contract. It has already been broken over the past six years, and I find that it is high time for me to fulfill your parent's wishes."


	15. Parents' Will

**Hi everyone! All your reviews are wonderfully positive. So I updated! And what's more, I updated two of my other fics too! Alright, so here ya go!**

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Harry could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. "I've seen my parents' will, and it says nothing about you. Sirius was appointed as my guardian in the event of their deaths."

Voldemort only smiled and conjured up a document. "Actually," he corrected, handing the parchment to a heavily scowling Harry, "your parents made another will shortly after your second birthday. If you examine it, you'll find that everything is in perfect working order."

"The Ministry of Magic will never accept-" Harry attempted, the sick feeling of inescapable dread beginning to sink into his heart.

"The Ministry of Magic has no choice but to accept it." Voldemort seemed so assured; he had to know something that Harry didn't.

"Only because you'll never be able to go to court so they can tell you that you're wrong!" Harry shot back, his temper rising. "You are a known mass murderer, and they'll never accept you as the guardian of a flobberworm, much less an impressionable young boy!"

Voldemort quirked an eyebrow. "You don't seem to be all that impressionable anymore, from what I've seen of you. And as I have never been convicted of any crime, I have a perfectly clear criminal record, darkened only by allegations."

"Completely founded allegations!"

"Allegations that have never been tried in court."

"Only because you've never had the nerve to show," Harry seethed furiously, trembling with rage. "And I can't see you prancing into the Ministry for a custody hearing; they'd lock you up the moment you stepped into the courtroom."

"Harry, Harry, Harry," Voldemort sighed, shaking his head back and forth fondly. "Do you really think that I would have left so many loose ends lying about for you to tie me up with? The Ministry of Magic is, above all, a bureaucracy. In order for them to hold me, they would have to already have the arrest permits available."

"There's a standing death warrant on you!"

"Was, Harry, was. After all, the Ministry of Magic has not heard even the slightest rumor of my continued existence for six years. Even a death warrant expires with time." Voldemort leaned back against the door frame, smiling contentedly.

"There are no loopholes for you to exploit, Harry."

He clapped his hands, straightening and moving on. "Now, Mr. Riddle and Mr. Potter both have a custody hearing scheduled in Courtroom Seven of the Ministry of Magic in precisely thirty minutes. I suggest you clean yourself up."

Voldemort left Harry after a short, mocking bow, closing and locking the door firmly behind him.

Harry threw a pillow after him, wishing that the dull thud came from Voldemort's head rather than the wood door.

"He can't do this!" Harry exclaimed, flopping backwards onto his bed. "Does he think I'll be grateful? That I won't remember that he was the one who killed my parents?" Harry rubbed his forehead, fingering the slight ridges of his scar. It smarted slightly, but Harry didn't know why.

"It's probably because of him," Harry muttered sourly. "Everything bad in my life happens because of him." Harry, therefore, steadfastly refused to clean himself up. A shower might make him feel better, but that would also mean pleasing Voldemort. He'd rather spend the rest of his life smelling like a cesspit.

"Besides," he thought aloud, "he can't be a very suitable guardian if he treats me like this. And it's not as if the Ministry of Magic will let me out of their hands if they see me again. I'll be back in that cell before Voldemort can say 'Crucio.'"

* * *

Voldemort appeared again twenty minutes later, redressed in Slytherin green silk robes. He frowned at Harry, who was still in his soiled Hogwarts robes.

"You've regressed quite a bit, living with those two mutts," he commented, his eyes hard as garnets. "You could dress yourself by the time you were two, and suddenly you're having problems." With a wave of his hand Harry's hair untangled itself and his robes became clean and crisp. "Now was that so hard?"

"We'll be Apparating directly to the Ministry," Voldemort continued when Harry didn't respond. Voldemort moved forward, reaching out to grab Harry's arm.

Harry pulled back, crying out. "Come now, Harry," Voldemort commanded impatiently, "it's not as if I'm my mere presence can hurt you." He grabbed Harry's arm again firmly.

Harry screamed once more, yanking back with as much strength as he could manage.

"In order to Apparate I have to touch you," Voldemort said, eyes unyielding. "You're going to have to deal with this pain until we get there."

Voldemort snatched Harry's arm again; they disappeared in a swirl of red-tinged smoke.

Harry dropped to the floor, retching what little was in his stomach. His head pounded fiercely and his scar was on fire. He blinked several times to clear his vision and groaned.

"What are we doing in a broom closet? Your idea of a nice locale?" Harry commented caustically, surprised that he felt well enough to insult anyone.

"Would you have preferred to collapse in a room full of people?" Voldemort snorted at the idea. "As dramatic as that would be, I don't need you to be dragged off to St. Mungo's before our court appearance."

"But after is okay?"

Voldemort just chuckled as Harry stood up and tottered out of the door Voldemort held open for him.

Harry had never been to the Ministry before (except for their holding cells) and he found himself rather bored by it. The columns that rose along both sides of the hallway seemed a bit unnecessarily pompous to him. After all, what was the point in imitating the Romans- just look at what happened to them.

"The same thing is happening now, Harry," Voldemort whispered into his ear quietly. Harry looked up, puzzled. "The Ministry of Magic is decaying. The signs have been there for decades, if any had deigned to notice them, but most don't see them at all or merely choose to ignore them. That's what I'm trying to change."

Harry rolled his eyes. "So you're Julius Cesar, out to take charge and save the Republic. Who's in your triumvirate then? Or have you already killed of your Crassus and Pompey?"

"Because triumvirates worked out _so _well the first two times, is that your point? No, a triumvirate is far too complicated and invites too many conflicting interests." Voldemort smiled slyly, looking down at Harry. "But neither am I interested in an autocratic dictatorship."

Harry's brow creased in concentration. "What kind of government do you want to create then? Surely not a theocracy or plutocracy or anything else of the sort."

"That, my Harry," Voldemort responded with a serpentine smile, "is for you to figure out."

Harry growled in frustration. "I'm not _your_ Harry. And if you're going to kidnap me, the least you can do is give me some answers!" he whined.

"Oh, do quit complaining. This wouldn't be nearly so much fun if I just told you."

By this time, the two had reached their destination. Two Aurors- bad ones by their lax posture and how they didn't even ask Voldemort to lower his hood- waved them through.

The court room itself was rather small. A tired looking judge sat in the front behind an impressive mahogany desk. In front of him, two tables were neatly arranged. One of the two was already occupied.

"Hello Harry, Tom," Dumbledore greeted jubilantly.

* * *

**Heh. Right. So... any opinions as to what you want to happen next are greatly appreciated. Lata.**

* * *


	16. What Do You Want Me to Do?

Right-o. So here's the deal. I started writing this story over three years ago, when I was just barely past puberty. And it sucks. That's why I chose to abandon it. The entire thing is riddled with plot holes, misspellings, grammar problems, and inconsistencies. I hate it.

That being said, for some odd reason people seem to like it. I just re-read the entire fic, and think I more or less just threw things in because I felt like it, or because I'd really, really like to be able to smartmouth everyone, but am far to non-confrontational to do so.

So here's the deal.

We have three options.

Option #1: I go through and edit the entire thing, fix the mistakes, and keep on going much in the same manner in which it was originally written.

Option #2: I still scrap this thing, but instead post a completely revamped version that I think would much better reflect my current style as an author, and also the fact that I'm now at university and oh-so-mature.

Option #3: I do both. Fix the old one and post the new one.

Please understand that I have very little time to write; no matter what option you choose, I doubt they will be updated frequently. I also have a tendency to contract every single disease/ syndrome on the planet, specifically those that are stereotyped as "old people illnesses."

But I will do what you, the readers, want. I really don't understand it, but this is one of my stories that gets the most responses from readers. And I feel really, really guilty after reading some comments. Aren't you now glad I was raised by a Catholic mother?

To facilitate this decision more, I will post what I have of the revamped version. I'll put up a poll on my profile page (once I figure out how to do that) or you can let me know in a review.

Thank you for your inexplicable love of this story,

Sword of the Shadow

Helen pushed the paper closer to the boy, speaking gently. He was curled up in the chair, just staring at her with those big green eyes of his. Helen would have hugged him, would have held him and whispered that everything was going to be okay, but the boy refused to be touched. Helen smiled softly, pointing at the box of crayons.

"It's okay if you don't want to talk, Harry. You don't have to, and we won't try to make you, alright? We just want to know what happened, so we can help you. Maybe you should draw a picture of what happened. That way you wouldn't have to say anything, but we can figure this out." Harry just stared at her, looking deep into her eyes as if trying to find a hidden message there. She kept the smile on her face, tried to appear warm and comforting, but inside she was crying. Only five years old, and an orphan. And to be orphaned on his birthday, no less! The poor boy, with his pale face and sad eyes.

He slowly reached for one of the crayons with a trembling hand. Helen continued smiling, nodding in encouragement. He set the green crayon against the parchment, holding it awkwardly, as if he had never coloured with a thick crayon before. He drew a single line, then paused. He looked at Helen, who widened her smile an inch. He drew another line, right next to the first one. Another glance, this one quicker than the first, and then he drew another line, intersecting the first two. After that, he hesitated no longer, colouring the piece of parchment with abandon.

Helen didn't look at the picture, but instead studied the boy. He was fiercely concentrating, his tongue sticking out between his lips and his brow furrowed. His arm jerked, almost uncontrollably, he grabbed another crayon without taking his eyes off the picture, without even stopping his wild drawing. His eyes shone with tears, but none fell to stain the parchment. Helen's heart jerked, and the urge to hug the despondent child nearly overwhelmed her.

Then, as quickly as his corybantic colouring had begun, he was finished. He carefully replaced his two crayons in the box, and slid the picture across the child-sized table. Helen pulled it toward her, fighting to maintain her smile.

It was an endless field of green, a starburst of the colour, dark on the edges, fading gradually into the emerald of the boy's eyes at the center. Considering his age and materials, it was very well done.

"It's a very pretty picture, Harry. Is it grass?" The boy shook his head, sadly. "Then what is it?" He raised his hand and began to wave it around, forming they symbol of an old rune while mouthing two words.

_Avada Kedavra._

Helen gasped in spite of herself, in spite of her training at remaining calm. "I know, sweetling. That's what happened to your parents. But who did it, Harry? And what happened to you?" She reached for another sheet of parchment, but Harry moved before she could offer it to him.

Harry simply pointed at the picture again, and then he brushed aside his dark fringe, revealing an odd cut. The other Healers, the ones who had brought Harry to her when he refused to say a single word, had told her about it. Magic could not seal it, could not so much as stem the flow of blood. It was still bleeding; as she watched a drop of blood rolled down his face, a bloody tear. A bandage would not stay over it, nothing could cover it. And the wound, shaped like a lightning bolt, reeked of Dark magic.

"Wo- would you like something to, to eat?" she finally managed to ask, tremulous smile back in place. Harry didn't move. "I'll go get you some Chocolate Frogs, how does that sound?" She didn't wait for his response, fleeing the room to the bright lights of the main pediatric ward. She shut the door firmly behind her, sliding down the cool wood surface, her face buried in her hands.

"Helen? How did it go, what did he say?" She tried to force her hands to quit their trembling, and fought to stop her legs from collapsing altogether.

"The Killing Curse," she gasped, pressing her hands against her chest, "someone cast the Killing Curse on that poor little boy."

"But there were only the two bodies. What are you talking about?"

"Harry Potter. Someone cast the Killing Curse at Harry Potter. And he... survived..."

* * *

Admittedly, it's not much, but... well, I'll go along with what seems to be the general consensus.


End file.
